Chronicles of Sean Book One: The Animorph
by NateSean
Summary: Sean trips and falls on the one thing that will help him save his Dad. But Dad's Yeerk is not all he seems and Sean must deal with the fact that he is very much alone in this desperate war...or is he?
1. Chapter 1

_The last part of this Chapter takes place the day after Elfangor Landed on Earth. Tobias is currently at Jake's house telling him about acquiring and morphing into Dude, his cat._

My name is Sean. And a week ago, my life just wasn't that complicated. A week ago the biggest thing on my mind was what I would have for breakfast. Later that day it was whether not breakfast would stay down as I flew for the first time on a jumbo jet. Would it be my last meal entirely?

The last thing on my mind was the idea that I would have to fight an alien invasion on my own.

Maybe you should let me back up to the beginning of the week. Just hear me out, before you call the men in white coats. As I said, it began Thursday evening when my dad announced that he would be taking a trip the next morning and that I would be coming along.

My father is an investigative journalist for a major newspaper. Earlier this year he began a series of articles that began with building materials and construction equipment from companies either being purchased by unknown sources or completely disappearing. The owners claimed to know nothing, or if they did know something, Dad suspected they were lying. Either way he smelled a bigger story and he was going after it.

One week he received a call from a fellow journalist clear across the country. Apparently the same thing was going on his area and he wanted to compare notes. Dad decided to spend the weekend there and see what he could dig up.

Since Mom was no longer in the picture, Dad decided this would be a fun weekend for us to spend together. I was so psyched about a trip away from town that I didn't quite hear him when he said we would be flying.

That first time, strapped in the seat as the flight attendant gave the preflight instructions, I don't think my heart has ever pounded so quickly. Then the doors closed and plane taxied down the runway. My heart rate increased and I squeezed Dad's hand for comfort. He just smiled and whispered words of comfort as the jet picked up speed.

My body was forced back into the seat. I closed my eyes tight as I felt the vibrations of the wheels on the tarmac. Then the floor seemed to push my feet upwards as I felt us rise into the air. It was my first time and I survived it. Had I known what I was about to face later that week, that ride would have felt safer than jumping from a swing.

"It's going to be great," Dad told me, once the seatbelt sign clicked off. "They've got this place called The Gardens. It's kind of like the Great Escape, but it's got a full zoo and everything. Once I get this interview out of the way we can spend the whole weekend just exploring the city."

"That's awesome," I said, clutching my stomach. It wasn't nausea exactly, just a sinking feeling in my gut as I imagined what would happen if the plane struck turbulence or fell from the sky entirely. I took several deep breaths and leaned, cautiously over my father so I could look out the window. I thought I'd be freaked out, but the sight of houses and streets from so far up kept my attention.

Cars on the road looked like a precession of ants on the way to get a cookie. I couldn't help but laugh. It was an idiotic laugh. The kind of nervous laugh you would let out after you survived a hurricane or a tornado.

The flight took about twelve hours as the plane flew through time zones, but to me it felt like minutes. Once the fear was gone and I stopped imagining what would happen if the plane fell from the sky, I got caught up in the experience. I said hi to the stewardesses and thanked them for making my first flight fun. I read through the catalogs provided by the airline and made fun of the characters on the in-flight movie.

Most parents would have told their kids to knock it off. But Dad wasn't like most parents. He didn't care if I was acting weird, because he knew I was just experiencing the flight for the first time. So long as I wasn't rude, destructive and no one complained, he let me be who I was.

When we landed I was so giddy that the jet lag didn't catch up with me until we were at the hotel. Dad was at the desk going over his notes and reading through clips of his previous articles. I sat at the edge of the bed watching TV.

"So do you know this guy you're meeting?" I asked when _The Simpsons_ was over. Another episode was starting, but it was one I had seen before and I was starting to get too tired to find it funny.

Dad shook his head. When I looked over at him I could see two slices of the pepperoni pizza we'd ordered for dinner. The pizza was made in the hotel kitchen. The oil had dried up and the slices were starting to look flat tasteless.

"We've been e-mailing back and forth," he said, while reading. "He said he saw my work on the website."

"Your stories are posted online?" I asked.

"Well, no, I submitted these articles through the Associated Press," Dad turned in his chair so he could look at me as he explained it better. "You see the Associated Press is kind of like a bank of articles. Anyone can have access to them for a price, which is why I made so much money off of that first article back in February."

I remembered that check. All those zeros didn't seem real at first, but Dad had earned them. I tried to remember everything about the article.

"You said you thought the people who owned all that stuff were lying," I said. "Do you think the same thing is happening here?"

Dad smiled. "That's what I intend to find out. And if this works out, Sean, we are going to be able to move into a much bigger house somewhere in the countryside. This story is going to set us up for a very long time. We're going to do a lot more things together."

I didn't know how to feel about that, so I just smiled. The truth is I was happy for Dad. This story would be a big deal for his career and if he made that extra money, that'd be awesome. But I guess I've never been all that impressed by money.

His job at the paper paid more than enough for us to get by. We lived in a nice apartment in a fairly decent neighborhood. I was able to walk to school every day, which I loved. If we got a house in the countryside I would have to take the bus. And the plane ride was a bumper car race compared to having to put up with the shouting, the smell of sweat, and the uneven, stomach turning roads that a school bus promised.

When I thought of the news and the people who did horrible things for money, it made me glad that Dad was there to expose them for who they were. It wasn't easy knowing the risks he took to get the stories. There was also knowing that one day I could get a visit from a police officer, telling me that Dad crossed one line too many and upset the wrong person. But if these were the kinds of people he was trying to investigate, that was all that mattered to me.

The next morning we had breakfast at a diner. Dad was wearing khaki pants and a gray button down shirt. He never wore a tie to interviews, but he kept his short dark hair underneath his baseball cap. He also wore a jacket from some baseball game from years ago that helped him to blend in with the crowd if he had to make a run for it. He had a tape recorder in his shirt pocket and a note pad in the messenger bag that he kept around his shoulder.

After breakfast, we took a walk around the block. The streets were packed with busses, taxicabs and other commuters filling the air with the smell of exhaust. Sunlight reflected off of the top most windows of the tallest sky scrapers. Some of the shops were just opening up and I looked in windows fascinated by what was inside.

"How many subway entrances did we just pass?" Dad asked after we had walked some distance.

"Three." I said, recognizing his tone. He wanted to know that I was paying attention.

"Actually, there was a forth one across the street," he said. "But not bad. What was the name of the diner we were just at?"

"Joanna's Deli," I said, smugly. As an afterthought I added, "Our waitress's name was Frieda and she had curly red hair."

"All right, smart guy." Dad ran his hand through my hair. "What buses meet right there?"

There was a shelter at the bus stop ahead of us and I ran up to look at the sign above it. When he caught up to me, I read them off.

"Okay," Dad pulled his wallet out of his side pocket. "Did you remember your wallet?"

I pulled mine out to show it to him.

"Here's forty dollars," he said, handing me the two twenties. He waited until I put the money in the wallet and put the wallet back in my pocket. "Take the bus to the mall and hang out there for a while. Get a bus schedule and try to be back before six. Can you handle that?"

"Yeah," I said. "I did handle Manhattan on my own, remember?"

Dad smiled and nodded.

"Yes you did," he said. "All right, there's your bus."

I looked up and saw the number fifty bus. A marquee of the places along the bus line included The Gardens.

"Is that the amusement park you were telling me about?" I asked.

"That's the one," Dad answered. He gave me some extra money for the bus fare. "We can check it out tomorrow. I'll see you tonight."

"Thanks Dad," I said, before climbing into the bus.

Have you ever had a feeling, like you know something big was going to happen? Not always a bad thing, but something that would change your life forever? It's easy to say you _knew _that would happen after the fact. Or that you _should _have seen it coming.

The fact is I always saw it coming. I knew that one day Dad _would _go too far for a story. Just like every firefighter's family member must know that one day their loved ones will die trying to save someone else. It's not a fear. It's something you expect.

And for some reason, I knew what was going to happen that day. At the same time, I didn't know anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

_During the events of this chapter, Cassie has also experimented with morphing into a horse. Jake, Marco and Tobias are on their way over to her farm._

Spencer's Gifts, Hot Topic, Banana Republic, The Limited…every mall has the same set of stores, I swear it. Even the fairly original stores look the same. The dollar stores, the little shop full of retro t-shirts and hippy slogans and of course what mall wouldn't be complete without the arcade?

I was bored as soon as I got there. I checked out some cool dragon figurines at an art shop and there was a Walden Bookstore where I did a little reading. But other than that, there wasn't anything that really held my interest. In the arcade I blew a few quarters on Mortal Kombat, but I also remembered that Dad would expect me to save enough money for the bus back to the hotel and I didn't much time there.

As I looked at some movies in Sam Goody I wondered what Dad was doing. Did he meet his contact? And were they both safe trying to uncover this conspiracy. Wondering If Dad's contact was all right made it less selfish in my mind for worrying about him. Besides, whatever he was doing right now had to be tons more interesting than watching some ditz and her little friends gushing over the Backstreet Boys poster in the music section.

I ordered some beef lo mein and General Tso's Chicken in the food court. (There's another one; the family owned Chinese/Japanese restaurant) As I ate, I tried to put Dad and his work out of my mind. This was supposed to be a "fun" weekend after all. How is a kid supposed to have fun when he's worried about what his parents are doing?

My watch said one thirty. Dad said to hang out at the mall for a while. He didn't say I had to be there all day, just that I had to be back at the hotel before six. If I was going to be bored somewhere, I'd rather be bored in a place that has a TV and a pool. So with nothing better to do, I went back to bus stop on the east entrance. As I sat on the bench waiting for the bus, I looked out beyond the parking lot and a stretch of trees to what looked like a construction site.

_Big deal? _I thought.

Big deal but I was so bored. For some reason I'll never understand, I just wanted to take a closer look, so I left the mall parking lot. I had plenty of time before the next bus showed up and even if I missed it there would be another one in forty minutes.

Even as I got closer to the site, I wondered what it was that was drawing me here. If I was bored before I saw it, seeing that the site was mostly abandoned didn't make it any less boring. There was some pipeline sticking up from the ground, concrete and half finished buildings here and there and mostly a lot of garbage, broken glass and places where someone had started a camp fire.

I tried to avoid the puddles. Explaining mud on my shoes was going to be even harder than explaining my reason for coming out here if Dad found out.

_Dad tries to tell the world of a senator was caught stealing money, _I thought. _Those people can hire other people to kill him just for that and I have to explain to him why I'm taking stupid risks?_

Except that no one was going to care if I got hurt here. Maybe that was just it. Maybe I was just doing something that I couldn't explain, or wouldn't even bother trying. Sorry Dad, I went wandering through an old construction site. No real reason.

"Hey!" Someone shouted.

I turned to see a man staring at me. He was a grown up a bit shorter than my father, wearing an orange vest and a hard hat. He was standing near one of the half finished buildings along with three other guys wearing similar outfits.

"What are you doing here?" The guy asked.

"Um, sorry," I said, stepping back slowly. "I didn't realize there was anyone here."

"What difference does that make?"

He started towards me. My heart skipped a few beats from the shock, but I stood my ground at first, thinking he was just going to chew me out for trespassing and send me on my way. Worse-case scenario he would call the police and I would stick with my plan of not trying to talk my way out of it. Dad would probably ream me out and ground me when we got home, but it wouldn't interrupt his work at all if I got in trouble this one time so far away from home.

"Just let him go," another man said. "He's just a kid, he doesn't know anything."

I eyed the other man curiously. He had darker skin and was holding something in his hand.

"Can you take that chance?" The first one asked.

He grabbed me by the shoulder and forced me to move with the group. Since I wasn't making a move to run, I thought that was a little unnecessary. I began to struggle.

"Let me go!" I yelled.

He dragged me to the building with the rest of the group as the other three surrounded me. It's only when I got closer that I saw the device in the black man's hand was some kind of gun.

"We should take him to the pool," a third man said. "We'll know for certain then."

"Know what?" I asked. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to check this place out and I didn't know it was still open for business."

They ignored me as the guy holding me pushed me towards a utility van. I realized these guys might be connected to Dad's story. Reporter's kids are high on the list of priority targets for kidnappers, and if these men were involved in the kind of activity he was trying to expose, they probably had information about me.

_So much for not interfering with Dad's work,_ I thought.

Thinking quickly, I looked down and saw that he wasn't wearing steel toed boots like a construction worker but black loafers. Acting on pure instinct I slammed the heel of my shoe into his foot.

He screamed in pain and lost his grip.

I bolted for the road. They shouted after me and I was suddenly grateful for the self defense classes I was forced to endure for three years after class.

I jumped over a ditch as a beam of red light struck the pavement near where I landed. The dirt and rock exploded and I threw my arms up to shield my face. Another beam barely missed me and struck a pipe. A cloud of vapor rose from the ground where the beam hit.

Lasers! Actual freaking laser guns! This was unreal! I took off, knowing that Dad was going to run into these people. I had to warn him and get him out of here before they hurt him. I turned to avoid the laser beams, getting further from the road as I ran.

"Get back here and we'll let you live, boy!" Someone yelled. Three beams sliced the air above me, striking a wall and sending brick everywhere. I jumped back to avoid getting struck and lost my balance.

As I hit the ground, my hand touched something flat. A strange tingling sensation passed through my arm, which was almost as strong as the pain that ripped through my spine. I moaned and tried to cry out for help.

"Where did he go?"

The men surrounded me now. The leader's foot was just an inch from my head and there was nothing covering me. Still, three of the four men looked around, sweeping their lasers and searching. I wasn't sure what was happening, but if they were suffering from a sudden case of blindness then I wasn't going to help them.

"Did we hit him?" The shorter one with the shaved head asked. He had lost his helmet somewhere in the run and was sweating.

"I had my beam set to stun," The leader said. "Even if we hit him at that setting it would have left a body. Check that pile, he must be hiding."

The two men walked past me, barely missing my arm by a few inches. I didn't know if it would make a difference if I moved or not, but I stayed put just in case. I tried to control my breathing and turned my head to see what it is I had touched.

My hand was on some blue box. It was covered in dirt and I couldn't quite make out what it was, but the tingling sensation stopped as instantly as it had started. Only the pain in my back remained. 

The two others sorted through the rubble while the leader stood to the side, keeping his laser pointed at them in case I "jumped out" at them.

That's when I saw the dark skinned man looking down at me. His expression was serious and my heart pounded as I lay there in silence, hoping the other three wouldn't notice me as well. He didn't seem to be interested in telling the others that I was here, but then he was the one who suggested they let me go.

"My name is John," he said kneeling beside me. His eyes were on the other three.

"What's going on here?" I asked.

John helped me up, slowly, feeling along my back with his hand.

"You didn't break anything," he said, helping me to my feet. "Just take it for granted that they can't see or hear you right now."

I stared at him, not believing what I was hearing. "Take _that _for granted? How about the lasers, should I just take those for granted too?"

"They're called dracon beams. And I think you should take it for granted you are alive."

I couldn't tell if he was threatening me or not. But then, what was the point of threatening me? He had me by the…well, he had me cold.

"Larry!" John shouted.

I jumped as they swung around. Larry looked right at me and my heart stopped as I waited for him to blast me, but he just looked past me to John. John pointed and I followed his gaze past the damaged wall to …myself running in the opposite direction.

"There he is!" The others shouted.

While Larry, Curly and Moe continued to chase my doppelganger, John spun me around and looked me in the eye.

"What is your name?"

"Why should I tell you that?" I asked, trying to project a defiance I didn't feel. My body shook so badly that I wasn't sure I could walk and I desperately hoped that the wetness I was feeling was from sweat. "Shouldn't you guys have a file on me somewhere in your "Kidnap this Kid for Black Mail" cabinet?"

John chuckled mirthlessly.

"You're funny kid," he said. "But I think you're smart enough to know I could have killed you right now myself, or handed you over to Visser Three. Yeerks are opportunistic like that."

I stared blankly. Was any of that supposed to make sense-other than the compelling argument about the killing me?

"You're not an Andalite," he said, again, as if that was supposed to make sense to me. "But you're life is about to get complicated either way."

"My life was all ready complicated," I said, gesturing to three stooges chasing my apparition. "This tipped the scale from complicated right into a padded cell with no windows and no shoe laces. I mean, come on John. How much of this do you think I'll be able to tell them before they ask measure my neck for a straight jacket?"

"You need rest." John said. He looked out to the road then at me again. "The bus is coming. You're right, the Yeerks know about you but they don't know what advantage you just tripped and fell on. So go to your hotel, get cleaned up and get some rest. When your father comes back, tell him nothing of what happened here."

I looked down at my clothes, which were filthy. The pants were torn and my watch, the one my grandfather gave me for my birthday last year, was broken.

"How am I supposed to explain all of this?"

"You tripped and fell," John said, matter-of-factly. "And I hope you're a convincing liar. Your ability to live may depend on it."


	3. Chapter 3

_At this time, Marco has figured out that Tom is a controller. _

John got me to the bus stop. What his friends thought of him suddenly disappearing I didn't know. But since my grasp on reality had taken a severe beating over the last twenty minutes I didn't question it.

The bus driver and a few passengers expressed concern over my appearance and my obvious trance-like state. I tried to assure everyone that I was fine and that I hadn't been robbed, or mugged. I just want to get home and please no, I would not like it if the police were called.

I didn't know what had happened but I sure as hell wasn't going to tell anyone that I was chased by four guys with "dracon beams" and hidden from sight by a guy who waved his hand and told them I wasn't the droid they were looking for.

Right now the biggest thing on my mind was getting to the hotel and getting cleaned up before Dad got there. The Chinese food was kicking in at the most inappropriate time and I didn't think soiling my pants would improve my situation either.

Words and images kept floating around in my head. Yeerk, Andalite, Dracon Beam? And what one guy said about a pool. And if they didn't know who I was then how did John know? I mean, my dad wasn't actually famous and though he had regular readers who frequently e-mailed him, he wasn't exactly Stephen King. The theory about these guys kidnapping me was only based on the idea that they had inside information about me, but if they were connected to Dad's story then it was a pretty big coincidence.

Then there's what John said. John himself was a mystery, but what he said stuck with me the most. Lying to my dad would keep me alive? The last time I had ever lied to him was when I was five. And even then, all I got was a talk about lying and I had to miss an episode of _Tiny Toons_. Around that time I realized that lying to an investigative journalist was pretty pointless.

_I hope you're a good liar. Your life may depend on it._ John's words echoed in my head. Every time the bus stopped and the doors opened I had to fight the urge to jump. Each time I expected those men to board the bus and drag me off it, kicking and screaming, with no one else attempting to stop them. At the very least I was surprised not to see the van following me.

At the hotel I dodged the same barrage of concerned stares and offers of assistance. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great when total strangers will see a kid looking half injured and actually try to help him. Unlike the handful of times I've had my butt kicked by bullies while adults just passed by and said nothing, at least here these people were genuinely concerned about my safety. But I had to politely brush them off, because for all I knew, they were in on the plan.

Whoever these "Yeerks" were, John didn't make them seem like Latter Day Saints.

_I'm sounding like a paranoid schizophrenic now, _I thought on the elevator. The trembling came back and I began to feel nauseas. Like my stomach wasn't in enough knots right now.

Thankfully my key worked on the first try, because I barely made it into the bathroom. After I showered and changed into some clean clothes, I tossed the torn pants and shirt into the cleaning lady's cart at the end of the hall. Then I spent the next half hour trying to scrub the dirt and the mud from my shoes.

Dad came in wearing the same jacket and coat. He didn't look like he had been hurt, or like he had even been in any kind of danger. I sat down on the bed, clutching my stomach. The nausea I felt and the sweat collecting on my face certainly wasn't fake.

"Hey, bud. Did you have a good time at the mall?" Off my look, he frowned. "Did you have a good time at the mall?"

I couldn't bring myself to lie like John suggested. So I decided to go with as much of the truth as I was able.

"No," I said. "I've been sick since I left there."

Dad came over and put his hand on my forehead and pulling it back.

"Ouch," he said, shaking his hand. "What did you eat?"

"It was lo mein. But I think it might have been the bus ride too." I didn't explain much more, knowing that Dad would think I was suffering from motion sickness. Cars, planes and boats were all right, but busses always had that effect on me when I was younger.

"Why don't you try to rest," Dad said, taking his jacket and cap off. "I'll get you some ginger ale."

I nodded and got ready for bed. As I lay there, drifting off to sleep I began to consider the possibility that I just dreamed the whole thing. I was so bored that I needed something big to happen and I needed it o connect to what Dad was doing. That explained why John suddenly knew everything and was able to make those guys go away, didn't it? Didn't it?

_The following day, Jake and Cassie track down a lizard in the barn of the Clinic._

"Are you feeling better?" Dad asked, the next morning.

"Much better," I said. We were in hotel's dining room eating muffins and drinking juice from the continental breakfast. That morning I decided that what happened last night wasn't real.

I thought about all the questions Dad would ask that I couldn't answer. Aside from the fact that what I would have told him was basically the plot out of a science fiction novel, he would spot some glaring plot holes. Like what were these guys doing at the construction site to begin with. They didn't have any equipment out except for the van and the guns and it was just the four of them as far as I could tell. Who was John and what was this "power" he had to send an apparition of me leading the others away?

And what would Dad think of a strange adult telling some kid to lie to his father? That would send red flags up to any parent, much less any kid who had been well schooled in the lessons of stranger danger. As is, the only reason I didn't think of it then was because John-or in my imagination at least-had saved my life.

"So, do you feel up to a trip to the Gardens?" Dad asked, breaking my line of thought.

"I think so," I answered. "Did you get everything you needed from the interview?"

A strange grin broke Dad's face. It was a look I had never seen before and I didn't like what it made me feel.

"Oh yes," he said. "I got exactly what I needed."

There was something about that tone. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. All that happened to me yesterday was a bad case of food poisoning combined. Dad just got a major lead on a huge story and he was entitled to gloat like anyone.

Still, that feeling came back. When I got up and wiped the crumbs from the table, I watched as Dad threw our paper plates in the trash. Something nagged at me. I tried to push it out of my mind as we took the bus to The Gardens.

"Are you doing all right?"

I had been zoning out, watching the buildings and the cars go by. I looked up at Dad quizzically.

"How's your stomach?" he asked.

"It's all right," I said, remembering what I'd told him last night. "I think it was the food that made me sick the most."

"Maybe I should give the health board a call," Dad suggested. "Or I could write a really nasty review of their restaurant."

Off his tone, I knew Dad was joking. But I also knew his talent for getting people to slip up by getting them to laugh and throwing them off their guard. Even though I swore I'd forget about it, John's words rang clear in my head again. I snorted and smiled but I didn't say anything else.

The Gardens was big, loud and full of people. It was a Sunday afternoon and the church crowd was out, which probably didn't mean as much in a city this big. But from experience in my small New England town, things generally got busier once the worshippers got out of church.

Dad and I spent some time in the amusement park area. After last night we both agreed to save the really intense rides like the roller coaster and the pirate ship for another time. That left the bumper cars, which were fun. But after a while in a park like this, if you're not going on those intense rides that most kids come here for there's hardly any point in being here.

We decided on hot dogs for lunch and sat under a pavilion near the pirate ship ride. Then I looked at Dad and I felt a twinge of guilt.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"For what?" He asked, confused.

"For not doing any of the big stuff," I answered with a shrug. "Those bigger rides, I mean."

Dad shrugged.

"You don't have to apologize for that. This is your day. Besides, I know stuff like that isn't your thing. I figured you'd be more interested in the zoo part, anyhow."

I smiled, weakly.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Still, I guess it's embarrassing though. Flying gets me nervous and the whole bus thing...I just know I can be disappointing sometimes."

"Hey," Dad pointed to fingers to his eyes. "You are not a disappointment to me. Ever. So other kids love roller coasters or riding the bus. You still get to school on time every day and you can handle yourself in a major city by yourself. There are people twice your age that can't leave their parents houses so don't be ashamed because you get a little nervous about flying."

The speech made me feel better. But it also made me feel stupid for being so paranoid earlier. I was about to suggest we check out the zoo.

"Mark!"

Dad and I looked over at a tall, dark haired man approaching the table. He was about Dad's height but he wore light clothes that showed that he wasn't very athletic. Probably drove everywhere and didn't exercise much, but then I wasn't winning any fitness awards either so I couldn't judge.

"Benjamin," Dad said, getting up to meet the guy.

There was a kid with him about my height, with lighter hair. While Dad shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with this guy, the kid smiled at me as if he knew me. It felt a little awkward, but I didn't want to be rude so I returned the smile. Dad turned to me.

"Sean, this is Mark. He works for the Herald."

"Good to meet you Sean," Mark said. When he shook my hand, I could feel a stronger grip than I would peg a guy like him for having. Somehow I got the impression that if he wanted to, Mark could crush my hand without thinking twice about it. He turned to the kid beside him. "Sean, this my nephew, Erek."

"Hello," Erek's grip was just as firm. Although he was slightly less lanky than I was, he wasn't much older and a grip like that was a little surprising. "It's nice to meet you Sean."

"Same here," I said.

We didn't say much else. The adults continued to talk as if we weren't there. I went back to the bench and finished my soda before cleaning our area up so a family could take our spot. It wasn't until I turned away from the garbage can that I realized Erek was still looking at me.

"Erek," Benjamin said. "Why don't you and Sean go down to the zoo area? Mark and I have some stuff to talk about."

Dad gave me a reassuring smile. I frowned. I was used to Dad having to take off at short notice whenever he got a news lead. But something about this felt…well, weird. And after last night…

"Go on," he said. "Erek, it was good meeting you. Take care of my boy, will you?"

"I'll guard him with my life, sir," Erek said, in a tone that was either very sincere or very sarcastic, but Dad seemed to buy it. When he turned to me, I wasn't sure what to think. "What kind of animals do you like?"

I looked from Dad, to Benjamin to Erek. The adults had wandered off. That was so unlike Dad not to make sure I knew where I was going before leaving. He didn't quiz me once on where the entrance was, or the security station.

What was going on? I wondered.

"It's okay," Erek said, as if he were reading my thoughts. "Trust me, we need to talk."

The way Erek said it made me feel like I didn't have a choice one way or the other. But he also wasn't grabbing my arm or trying to drag me anywhere.

"All right," I said.

"Can we stop at the bathroom, first?" Erek asked.

He needed my permission? I just shrugged and said sure.

I didn't really have to go right then, but Erek insisted I come in with him.

"There's something I have to show you." He added.

Wow, things had gone zero to creepy in a matter of seconds. I stood there, staring at him, wondering if I should storm off. He must have sensed what was wrong and to his credit, he had the decency to be embarrassed.

"That didn't come out right."

"You think?" I responded. "Look, what's going on here? Your dad just comes out of-"

"That's not my dad." Erek said. "Benjamin is playing the part of my uncle. It's a long story but…do you remember what happened to you last night at the construction site?"

I whipped my head around, trying to see if Dad was nearby. Then I glared at Erek.

"I don't want him to find out about that," I said in a low voice.

"And we don't either," Erek insisted. He glanced back at the bathroom and looked at me with a shrug. "I didn't have to go that badly after all. What animals did you say you liked again?"

We left the amusement park area of The Gardens and entered a walkway that lead into an artificial jungle. Railings separated us from a glass wall, containing exhibits of baboons, gorillas and elephants. We stopped at a tree kangaroo exhibit.

"I thought it was a dream," I said, finally. "I wanted it to be."

Erek leaned against the railing, watching the tree kangaroo climb. A second one was on the ground munching on something.

"Do you remember touching something?" He asked. "You might have felt something, like an electrical shock."

I looked at him.

"How did you know about that?" I asked, keeping my voice to a whisper. "And for the record, this not an impressed tone of voice. I'm as wierded out now as when you asked to" – I put up two hands to make air quotes- "show me something."

Erek sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Even we make mistakes sometimes. But I didn't know of a more subtle way to approach you and you've all ready had a bit of a shock yesterday."

As much as it annoyed me, at least Erek was apologizing. I decided to start from the beginning.

"Okay, so, what was going on at the construction site."

Erek was quiet, thoughtful for a while. It was good to see that he had learned from his mistake and was trying to find a better way of explaining things.

"Do you believe in life on other planets?" He asked.

"I guess so," I answered. "I'm not much of a fan of science fiction or anything, but I like to think there is other life out there. The universe is just too big for there to be one planet with life on it, you know."

Erek nodded. "Well what you have to know is that you're right. There is life out there. Some of it is as old as the universe itself and others like humans have just barely begun. Unfortunately, some of that life wants to destroy other life."

"What, like in Independence Day?"

"That was a good movie," Erek said, with a laugh. "I like Will Smith. But no, it's unfortunately not so direct. The real invaders are all around you, hiding in plain sight."

"Hiding how?"

"They're called Yeerks. In their natural form they're just helpless slugs that swim around in a pool, absorbing Kandrona rays. They have to do this every three days or they'll die."

"We're being invaded by slugs?" I said, in disbelief, though I remembered John saying something about Yeerks. "Well let me get the salt out and we'll have this invasion taken care of in a pinch."

Erek chuckled patiently, but he kept going.

"Again, it's not quite that simple. In their natural forms the Yeerks are helpless, but they don't remain helpless for long. They infest a host by entering through the ear canal and wrapping themselves around the brain, taking complete control of the body. They read the host's thoughts, move around for him, everything. And they've been doing this for nearly half a century."

"Okay…" I wasn't sure if I was supposed to add anything. What Erek was telling me made the events of yesterday seem explainable in comparison.

"They're passive invaders. Once they find a planet they like, with a species that they can use, they try to take it as quickly and as quietly as possible to avoid attention from their enemies."

"And who would they be?" I asked, almost flippantly.

"The Andalites."

There was another buzzword again.

"And who are the Andalites?" I asked, in the same tone.

"The enemies of the Yeerks," Erek said. From his tone it was clear that he knew I thought he was nuts. And to tell you the truth, I was happier believing he was nuts than the alternatives.

The less than pleasant alternative was that this guy John was some weird pervert, who had gotten me high on hallucinatory drugs and made up some story to see how I'd react. Erek was in on it and all of this was tied to the story my Dad had going, which was also connected to construction. The even less pleasant alternative was that Erek was telling the truth.

"Your dad is one of them."

I turned to face him. "What was that?"

Erek faced me and said, "Your dad was infested yesterday. All of that construction equipment and materials that were going missing were being appropriated by the Yeerks to build their underground pools. When your dad was getting too close to the truth, they contacted him and infested him when he arrived in town."

He didn't even try to duck as I swung. I've never hit another person before. Even when they made me angry, I didn't even try to swing because for the most part, I knew I'd have my butt handed to me on a silver platter. But this time, I didn't care.

You want to play mind games with me, fine, I'll deal with it. But you leave my Dad- OUCH!

Like I said, I never hit a person before. But tripped once and drove my fist into a brick wall to catch my balance. My hand throbbed for weeks after that and I've never forgotten what it felt like. When my fist connected with Erek's face, the memory came rushing to the surface, along with some choice words I never would have used around Dad.

"What was that?" I shouted, burying my hand in my arm to try to ease the throbbing.

Erek didn't say anything. Instead, his skin, his clothes, his whole body began to flicker like a bad screen projection. For a brief second his entire body disappeared and in the place of the boy I met just a few minutes ago, stood a robotic…dog I guess.

It stood upright on hind legs similar to a dog's. Its arms ended in a strange paw-like hand, sort of like a cross between Chewbacca and C-3PO. The skin-if that's what robots have-looked smooth and shiny, but it seemed to have a rough texture in parts. It's –his?- head ended in a muzzle and had pointed ears like a German shepherd.

"What are you?" I asked, trying to bite back more vicious cussing.

"I'm a Chee," The robot dog said in Erek's voice. Erek's image appeared once more. "We can create holographic projections, which is how Chee-Orous, or John as you know him, was able to confuse the Controllers."

I wanted to run. I wanted to scream out and most of all, I wanted this throbbing in my hand to go away. Erek gave me a sympathetic look.

"If you'll come with me," he said. "I know of away to make the swelling go away. I'm sorry for baiting you like that, but I figured if I made you angry you would be more open to my explanation."

"Fair enough," I said, sarcastically. But I followed him as he suggested because with the pain in my hand I was fairly certain I wasn't dreaming.


	4. Chapter 4

"What am I supposed to do be doing here?"

"Touch it."

For a minute I considered hitting Erek again. It couldn't make my hand worse but I might have felt better on the inside. Especially since, instead of taking me to the infirmary, he took me to the farm section of the petting zoo.

The building smelled of manure from the goats, sheep and pigs. Children fed the goats pellets from vending machines and tried to pet the chickens that ran away. Erek led me to the wild turkey pen.

"You want me to touch a turkey?" I stared at Erek, mentally ticking off the reasons not to walk off in a rage.

"Do you remember exactly what happened yesterday?" Erek asked. "You tripped and fell. You touched something that may have felt like an electrical shock. Do you remember that?"

"_Yes,_" I said, annoyed. "You asked me that all ready. Yes, I touched some box thing. It wasn't the most important thing on my mind at the time, but yeah, I remember it."

Erek didn't let my annoyance stop him. "Well that thing you touched was a piece of Andalite technology. We're not sure what Elfangor was doing with it, or why he landed at that particular construction site in the first place, but what we are sure of is that it was fully functional when you touched it."

I wanted to ask him what the hell he was talking about. But after seeing him turn into a metal, robotic, talking dog thing it was kind of hard to act like I was the one with all of my marbles.

"What was it for?"

"It's called a morphing cube." Erek said, simply.

"Feel free to start giving me information in larger doses." I said. I was trying not to sound more frustrated than I all ready was. "You just told me my Dad was under the control of some alien slug and you showed yourself to me, which is raising more questions than it is answering. If I'm losing my mind I'd say I'm handling it pretty well, so why don't you just give me the whole story instead of these little bites of information."

"I'm sorry." Erek turned to the turkey. "Fair enough. As I said before the Andalites are the enemies of the Yeerks. What the Chee know is minimal. We only infiltrate and we learned what we could, but not all of us are in high ranking positions."

"They don't know what you are?" I said, summing up what he told me.

"No. As is I'm taking a huge risk telling you what we are," Erek said, giving me a serious look. "If they capture you and infest you, the Yeerk will know everything you know."

"Which isn't a lot," I pointed out.

"True. But even what you saw would be very valuable to a Yeerk. They're largely self-serving and like John told you, they'll do anything to get a leg up in their Empire."

"How do you know what happened at the site? Did John tell you everything?"

"The Chee are connected by an advanced network. So while I was busy organizing a cook out for the Sharing, I was also watching your encounter with the Yeerks through John's eyes. At the moment, I'm being read the riot act by a few others just for having this discussion and even more are weighing in and understand why I'm taking this risk." Erek continued before I could interrupt again. "The Andalites are extremely advanced and powerful, but the Yeerks are elusive and have the advantage of numbers. They can get lost in a population while vetting a planet for enslavement and watch the Andalites slip by them, oblivious. And even if the Andalites put down an invasion on one world the Yeerks could be consolidating control on ten more.

"The morphing technology gives the Andalites the ability to infiltrate. To take the form of any person or animal and walk freely among the enemy populations."

"Sort of like the Navajo with the Japanese," I offered.

Erek smiled, and nodded.

"Kind of," he said, apparently glad to see that I was keeping up. "Only in this case, the Andalites have a disadvantage. Eventually they do have to return to their natural forms or they remain trapped in the morph forever."

"And this 'morphing' technology…I have it?"

"That's the theory." Erek said. He nodded to my hand. "How's the fist?"

"A mere flesh wound," I said, trying to do my best Black Knight imitation. It wasn't as sarcastic sounding as I had intended it, but then, I was slowly starting to be less angry with Erek and more at myself. He was only trying to tell me the truth – even if I _was _convinced that I was hallucinating now - and I hit him for it.

"If you acquire the turkey and morph, when you morph back, the damage to your fingers should be repaired."

_Oh well_, I thought. One of two things would happen. I would "acquire" the turkey and morph into it or I wouldn't and I would snap awake in my bed at the hotel room, or at home, or in the mental hospital I had been committed to whenever my break with reality occurred.

"Okay," I said. "How do I _acquire _it?"

"Touch it."

"Of course." I couldn't fight the urge to roll my eyes. When I got home, or snapped out of this delusion, I was going to scour every dream dictionary possible to find out what touching a turkey was supposed to symbolize.

With my other hand, the one that wasn't still throbbing, I reached for the turkey closest to the cage. It was a fat black thing. A tom, or a male, with thick black feathers and a large red caruncle (that red fleshy bit below the neck), it reminded me of the wild turkeys you can see in the rural areas around my home. It continued to peck at the ground as I touched its back, apparently used to people reaching out and touching it.

"Now concentrate on it," Erek said.

"It's kind of hard to-" I stopped midsentence as the turkey looked up and then seemed to go limp. I yanked my hand back. "What's happening to it?"

"Relax," Erek said, putting his arm on my shoulder. "It's a failsafe to keep Andalites from being hurt while they acquire dangerous animals. It wears off shortly."

I wasn't so sure. The turkey seemed to be asleep at first. I took it as a good sign that it still appeared to be breathing and I heaved a sigh of relief when it got back up and resumed looking for food.

"Now, concentrate again," Erek instructed. "Try to imagine what it's like to be a turkey."

_Is this the part where the camera crew steps around the corner? _I wondered. But I played along and focused. At the very least it was a story to tell the grandkids later in life.

"Okay, I'm imagining I'm a turkey." I closed my eyes for a minute and then opened them. I was about to make some gobble, gobble joke when a sudden spasm went through my body. It wasn't painful, but there was an uncomfortable sensation as something inside me felt different. "What was that?"

Erek placed his hand over my heart as I began to choke and gasp for breath.

"Your heart and lungs have started the morph. You have to keep going. Keep focusing on the turkey."

It made about as much sense as everything else, so I didn't see what I had to lose. As I focused on the turkey, the strange sensations and sounds happened in my body. Out of the corners of my eyes, which were sliding to the sides of my head, I saw a group of kids being lead by an adult.

"They can't see you," Erek assured me. "I'm projecting an image of two kids feeding the turkey.

I tried to respond, only to find that my throat and esophagus were shrinking. The skin grew tighter and rougher around my throat and over the rest of my body. The hairs on my arms seemed to "suck" into my skin. My muscles became flabby and smooth as the bones in my hands and arms twisted and contorted.

The strangest thing was there was no pain. And even though I could feel my brain getting smaller and my head shrinking I didn't feel anxiety or fear.

It was stranger, having Erek helping me out of my clothes. As my feet grew smaller and began to contort, for example, he gently helped me out of the shoes and socks.

Though my eyesight was becoming weaker I could see him placing the shoes on the floor and folding the rest of my clothes and placing them in a neat stack. I suppose I could have felt as freaked out as when he asked me to go to the bathroom with him, but frankly I couldn't stand to have any more clothes damaged and in any case no one was that thoughtful—or no one my age anyway.

My waist and my belly exploded all around me. My legs became thicker and fuller and my feet became skinny and hard. Five toes melted into three smaller toes. As my flesh became thicker and fuller I could feel something sprouting from behind me. I cocked my head to one side and saw several thick, black feathers forming a kind of fan all around my backside.

A hard yellow beak replaced my lips and mouth and my human nose was now two narrow holes right beneath my carnucle.

Something was in front of me. I looked up. The figure wasn't moving so it wasn't a threat. I looked at the ground and began walking.

"Sean? Can you hear me."

Three more larger figures were moving around the edge of the wall. My brain recognized them as living things. I could hear their chatter and to some degree I could smell them and make out the color of their clothes and hair. But since they weren't making a move to attack me they didn't bother me.

I turned attention to the ground. Something moved.

"Sean?"

A bug was crawling on the ground. I pecked at it three or four times before grabbing it in my beak. In two quick snaps the bug was in my belly.

"Mom look!"

A smaller figure, just a few feet above me approached.

"Oh, honey be careful."

"Careful kiddo," someone else said.

"What's it doing outside of the cage?"

"Somebody call a zookeeper."

The smaller figure approached me. Light bounced off of something on its wrist and I moved in to investigate. I pecked at it.

"Ouch!" The kid started screaming. Agitated, I started flapping my wings and freaking out.

Moments later, someone grabbed me. Panic! I continued to struggle.

"Are there supposed to be two males in this pen?"

"Sir, wait!"

I was placed back on the ground. But the worse of my problems were not over. Suddenly I was confronted with another male. Its plumage stood out in my vision and as it puffed up, I took the gesture as a threat.

"Warble, warble."

I puffed up my chest and flapped my wings. The intruder did the same.

"Look, they're about to fight!"

"Awesome."

More commotion agitated me. Loud noise meant a threat and the intruder was only making it worse by attacking.

"Sean, stop it!" Something grabbed me and carried me away. My struggle was futile but I didn't care. Something bigger than me was trying to take me and I didn't want to die.

"Sean, its Erek. Listen to me!"

Something in my mind snapped. I remembered that I was Sean, a human boy on vacation with a man that was no longer my father. I stopped struggling as I recognized Erek, who sat me down and knelt down to face me eye to eye.

"Now think on me," he said simply. "Speak to me. What is your name?"

Sean, I said…or didn't say. Erek…can you hear me?

"Yes," Erek said, sighing with relief. The gesture seemed strange coming from a robot, but it was such a small grain of rice on the big scale of strange things today. "And so can other people if you're not careful, so you must always remember to direct your thoughts at me."

Erek…I'm a turkey.

"I know."

Did I just eat a bug?

"Er, well…you didn't have control of the turkey's mind," he explained. "It wasn't your fault."

The thought should have disgusted me. But as I focused on the turkey's thoughts, I was actually kind of fascinated. Though I for certain knew that Erek was an alien android thing, my turkey brain only thought of it as another creature. If he wasn't being a threat, or making an attempt to attack, the turkey was simply curious.

Where are we? I asked, looking around. I saw what looked like broom on the wall and some shelves.

"In a maintenance closet," Erek said. "You walked outside of my projection and caused a bit of commotion so I had to get you out of there. Two other Chee are working on spinning it out of control. Uh…the bright side is we were right about you being able to morph."

Yeah, I said, sarcastically. That's the bright side all right. Did I hurt that kid?

"No. You just pecked at her watch. She was more scared than hurt."

Thank God.

"Are you read to be human again?"

I think so. You said the Andalites have a two hour limit?

"You do too," Erek pointed out. "If you remain in any morph for too long you'll be trapped. Now, focus on yourself again. Imagine looking in a mirror and just think of being that boy. Being Sean again."

I get it, thank you.

Morphing back to human form was easier, but it didn't happen the same way. I actually grew to my normal size before any of the turkey's features began to change.

Wow, can you imagine eating a turkey this big? I joked.

"As long as it's not you, of course," Erek countered.

Good point.

The image of a steaming hot turkey on a plate, stuffed with homemade bread and seasoned with herbs made the process quicker. To say nothing of having my long neck stretched across a cutting block and decapitated with an axe.

My feathers were the last thing to go as they melted into my skin. The darker shade (dark meat) seemed to shimmer and flow like a river dousing a fire as my natural skin color returned. And I was naked.

"Um…"

Erek handed me my clothes and turned around. As I got dressed I checked my body to make sure there were no more turkey parts. Everything was in order and, as Erek promised, my hand was no longer throbbing from when I'd hit him.

"You were right," I said. The realization hit me harder than…well, harder than I hit Erek. "You were telling me the truth about everything. I mean…my Dad?"

"He's a controller," Erek said, calmly. "And tomorrow you are going back home with him."

"But…"

As I got my shoes on, so many questions raced through my mind. But the funny thing about me, about the way Dad raised me, is that I could see more answers than questions. I looked at Erek and took a deep breath. I had to start with at least one question.

"What am I supposed to do?"


	5. Chapter 5

_During the events of this chapter Jake discovers the entrance to the Yeerk Pool. After acquiring more powerful morphs they make a desperate attack on the Yeerk Pool and escape with their lives._

_As Sean is on the plane, Erek is having an important discussion with the other Chee involving the Animorphs; the five on the west coast and the one on the east coast._

Nothing. I was just supposed to go home. Great.

I spent every second of that flight either sneaking glances at Dad's ear or trying to sleep.

"Are you all right?"

I should have tried to sleep more.

"I'm fine," I said.

Dad raised an eyebrow. My heart skipped a few beats and I started to run my stomach.

"Guess I'm just feeling a little woozy."

Inside of his head was an alien slug, connected to his brain. That slug was going through Dad's memories of his time raising me and trying to find out if what I had said was normal for my behavior.

Fifty thousand feet in the air and my biggest worry the whole flight was whether or not I would wind up with a Yeerk in my own head. A Yeerk that would learn of my ability to morph and of the Chee…why would Erek take the risk? If I had been his position, I'd have locked me away and thrown away the key. And that would be before I morphed the turkey.

I tried to sleep for the rest of the flight. Because even if I didn't know about the Yeerk, I had to admit, staring at his ear the whole time was pretty weird. Asking a kid you barely knew if you could show him something in the bathroom weird. (Erek will always be that kid to me, billion year-old android or not.)

We got home late Monday night. I had to go to school the next day so I tried to get some sleep, but there was so much on my mind that I wound up lying there in bed, staring at the ceiling. Every time the floorboards creaked I expected, Dad to bust in through the door with those guys from the construction site and shove a Yeerk into my brain.

Or…what was that guy saying about a pool? And Erek mentioned that the construction equipment was being used to build pools? Is that where the Yeerks stayed when they weren't…controlling people? You would definitely need a place to hide then, to keep your host from running free and telling others what's going on.

My thoughts drifted to the turkey morph. Yeah, it could have gone a little better, but…I was a turkey! And not in a metaphorical way, I was a genuine wild turkey.

What else could I be? All I had to do was touch it and…I could be a wolf! Or a bat. Or a…oh man, what a would morphing a humpback whale be like?

Ever since I saw _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_, I was so jealous of Spock getting to communicate with Gracie the pregnant humpback. How awesome would that be to really talk to other humpbacks? Or blue whales, or dolphins?

Flying! Could I actually become a bird and fly? That would be so awesome. And all I had to do was touch one. And all because I tripped and fell while running for my life.

I was about to give up on falling asleep and get up to grab a glass of milk when I heard Dad's voice. He was in his room next to mine, which also doubled as his office.

"Hang on," his muffled voice came through the door. "I think the boy is awake."

I stopped moving. The walls were thin and he would hear me clearly, so I stayed quiet and waited. A few seconds went by.

"All right. Finish what you were saying." Silence. Then, "No. That idiot doesn't suspect a thing, as always. For someone with two sets of eyes, he misses quite a bit. But your suspicions were correct Sestran. There are quite a few Yeerks under his command who would gladly buy their way out of his service."

There was a pause as he rustled some papers.

"Oh Sestran…this host is very valuable. If Visser Three only knew what this man had begun to uncover he would have never allowed this man to live. His mistake will cost him, just as mine did…Don't get weak on me now Sestran. You can't afford it and you know it. Make sure everyone you recruit knows it as well. May the Kandrona shine and strengthen you, brother."

My dreams of morphing a humpbacked whale deflated as the reality of the situation crashed down on me. Every time I tried to convince myself that it was all a dream, something like this happened. Only now Erek wasn't here to explain everything to me.

Visser Three? Kandrona? Erek mentioned a Kandrona before. It was what the Yeerks needed every three days. And Visser Three was the guy they wanted to bring me to at the construction site. He was in charge of all of this?

No…Visser Three may have been in charge, but it sounded like Dad…well, the Yeerk controlling Dad had a grudge against his boss.

_I need more information._ I thought.

"_We'll contact you," _Erek's words echoed in my head.

Great. In the meantime I could wind up dead, or worse.

If I couldn't sleep before, I certainly couldn't sleep wondering what the Yeerk in my dad's head was doing, or planning to do. So I waited another hour and got up. The Yeerk didn't know I knew anything, so I had the advantage as long as it didn't try to make me a controller.

I crossed the hall to the bathroom.

"Sean?"

My heart pounded but I didn't turn too quickly. Instead I pretended to yawn and turned around. After all, I was tired, I just couldn't fall asleep. Dad, on the other hand, was still dressed in the same clothes he was wearing on the flight in.

"Gotta pee," I said, smiling sheepishly.

"Thanks for the info," he said, smiling. "You sleeping okay?"

Did you hear anything? That's what the Yeerk wanted to ask, but Dad never hides anything from me. Every story he's working on, every lead he follows, he always tells me something. If anything were to happen to him, whatever he told me could be valuable for the police. So the Yeerk knew not to act suspicious.

_I'm figuring it out on my own, _I thought. _Erek must have known I would think of something. If the Yeerk makes a move to take me, I may have to try and run._

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I just drank too much soda on the flight."

Dad nodded.

I expected him to ask me what soda. I was asleep the whole time and I didn't even eat anything. The Yeerk didn't seem to pick up on that. So long as I didn't know what it was up to, that was all that mattered.

"Well…" I pointed to the bathroom.

"Go to it," Dad said, before turning back into his room.

I went into the bathroom and made a bit of noise. The window was open. I half considered morphing back into a turkey and seeing if those wings would get me anywhere, but I decided against it. The window was too small for a turkey to fit through anyhow.

Besides, I couldn't just run. Dad was all I had.

Mom was…God only knew what she was doing. She'd been doing it since I was six but it didn't have to do with me. And all Dad was trying to do was tell people the truth. And he was so good at it that the Yeerks wanted him dead…or to use him as a tool in their personal agenda against each other.

I went back to my room. The clock on my drawer said four-thirty. Damn it. School wouldn't be for another four hours and I had no reason to leave the house.

Movement?

There was rustling of papers. Dad was packing something. I barely had time to turn my head from the door and close my eyes as he opened it, checking to see if I was asleep. It was warm outside, but the room felt cold suddenly.

No goodnight. No, "I love you." No instructions on what to do if he didn't get back. Dad…the Yeerk…someone this Sestran guy was clearly afraid of…left the apartment. He didn't stop in the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee or something for breakfast, he didn't even leave a note. This Yeerk was doing everything wrong.

The car was parked in a lot directly below my window. I stayed in bed as the halogen lamps flooded the room. Then when the car backed up and the car was out of the driveway, I got up and watched as the car drove away.

School was in three and a half hours. That means I had two hours to find a bird that could keep up with that car. And I knew just where to look.

Visser Three may have made a mistake letting my Dad go. But this Yeerk made an even bigger mistake. Assuming I was stupid.


	6. Chapter 6

We read George Seldon's _A Cricket in Times Square_ in the fourth grade. When we finished reading the book, we watched the animated version, where Mario learns the story of the cricket from his piano teacher and not the shop owner where goes to buy Chester's cage.

Afterwards, the teacher started a discussion and (focusing on the animated version) asked us how Mario's teacher might have known about the cricket story.

I offered any number of suggestions, including the music teacher learning the story when he was a kid. To which my classmates quickly responded by pointing out that the music teacher was a fictional character and therefore not real. My classmates were idiots.

The point is I've always had a tenancy to overanalyze things. Sometimes it's a good thing, like when a teacher wants to know that I'm paying attention. Or when I go over conversations I've had with someone and try to remember anything that could explain the way things are happening now.

For example, I remember Erek telling me about the Yeerk pools. He also mentioned that the Yeerks need to return to these pools every three days or they'll die. If my dad was infested sometime on Saturday and today was Tuesday morning, it meant his Yeerk needed to feed and soon.

It took the whole day to fly back to Vermont and then we had to drive from the airport another four hours. So unless Dad's Yeerk had arrangements to teleport back to the west coast, then there had to be a Yeerk Pool nearby.

More to the point, it seemed like Dad's Yeerk was running a side operation against his boss, Visser Three. If that was the case, he would need a safe place to hide Dad when he was feeding, otherwise another Yeerk would infest him and know what he was planning.

All of this speculation was useless of course. If there was one thing Dad always taught me, it was that a journalist needed proof. Speculation wasn't enough to sell a story. Sometimes, it was just enough to cripple a good reporter.

So I got dressed for school and before I left, I grabbed a bagel from the fridge. As I walked, I took note of the birds I passed.

This early in the morning I could all ready hear robins and chickadees making noise as they flitted about in the bushes and lawns, looking for food. They were useless for long term flight and easy pickings for a hawk or cat.

Crows cawed and hung out on power lines. One was picking at road kill in the middle of the road. You almost had to admire its nerve, sitting there, daring the other crows to approach it and not bothering to fly away until it nearly became a hood ornament to the tow truck that sped through. Still, from what I could see, crows weren't very good distance fliers either. Ravens might be a little better, but there was no chance of getting close enough to acquire one and besides; I can't tell a crow from a raven.

But there was one bird I knew for certain I could get close enough to touch. It was a bird that was almost as tenacious as the crow, but definitely cockier.

It's a common misconception that seagulls only hang out near the…well, the sea. Believe it or not, I have actually seen seagulls near lakes and heard people ask what they were doing near a lake, since they were "seagulls". (And when you hear that story, it almost becomes easy to see why the Yeerks thought we'd be easy pickings for an invasion, but I digress.)

The fact is that seagulls fly quite a ways inland in search of food. Riding the current like living kites, you hardly ever see them flapping their wings, except perhaps to remain airborne. I live two states away from the ocean and the nearest large body of water is a four hour drive north of here. But there are plenty of seagulls here. Most of them love to hang around the school, where trashcans can get pretty full of food long before the janitors get around to changing the liners.

When I got to the school grounds, the sun was only halfway over the mountains, with rays barely touching the parking lot and the building where the cafeteria entrance was located. It was at the trashcan by the entrance I saw them.

Two small gulls had managed to pull a McDonalds bag to the ground, and were now fighting over a French fry. The better fighter one won out and the smaller pecked at the bag for more food. I removed the bagel from my pocket and broke off a small piece.

At first, neither seagull was interested when I tossed it to the ground. Either that or they didn't see it. I tossed another small piece. This time they both flew right to the second piece and again, began fighting over it. Never mind that there were two pieces of bagel on the ground, they both wanted the one piece.

"All right, stop fighting," I said, breaking a third piece off and tossing it.

I barely registered a third seagull flying right above me. But it's what I was counting on. I started making larger pieces of one half of the bagel and tossing it. Three quickly became four. And soon about six or seven were beginning to crowd me. Some were even flying close enough to touch. But I didn't want to hurt them, so I didn't reach out yet.

After the first half was gone, I started breaking up the second half of the bagel.

"Caw, caw!"

Two gulls started fighting again. A third one joined the fray to get the same piece. The larger ones didn't fight, they simply waited for me to throw a new piece. I wanted one of the larger ones. The bigger, dominant gulls who were eyeing me like I was the little girl in the opening scene of _The Lost World: Jurassic Park._

I crouched down and threw a piece to the largest one I could fine. A big gray winged gull with the white belly. It jumped over, spreading its wings out and cawing, daring the others to try to take its food. No takers. The other gulls simply floated around me, waiting for me to throw another piece.

I did. But this one was closer to me.

Like I planned, two or three of the gulls landed closer to me. The big gray winged one jumped in and fought them off, but I threw another piece. He got clear of them and landed close to my feet.

I tossed the rest of the bagel as far as I could with one hand and grabbed the seagull with my other, focusing on it. Just like with the turkey, the seagull seemed to go limp for a moment. I loosened my grip, hoping it wasn't hurt.

After a few seconds the gull screamed and bolted into the air, almost knocking me over.

"Awesome."

I spun around to see a kid named Bryce Treet. He was about my height with short dark hair and a ton of freckles covering his face and nose. The freckles weren't going away anytime soon. That, along with his name, was a trait that got him picked on quite a bit, even though it was something he couldn't really help.

We weren't exactly friends, but I stuck up for Bryce a few times—even though it got me a bloody nose or a bruise on my cheek for my trouble. And as a way of saying thank you he would help me with my math homework and save me a seat at lunch. It was as close to being friends as I was with anyone so it worked for me.

At the moment, the fact that it was too early for either of us to be near the school just wasn't as important to me as what he must have seen me doing. So I stood there trying to come up with a perfectly sound explanation.

"Uh…Hi Bryce," was all I could manage. I looked at the seagull, which had circled the parking lot and disappeared over the main school building. "I, uh…"

"Are you really going to morph into a seagull?" Bryce asked.

He couldn't have shocked me more if he had hit me. Off my look, he just laughed.

"It's okay Sean. I'm a Chee, like Erek."

Again…he couldn't have surprised me more if he had hit me. Only this time I was glad he surprised me in a way that wouldn't leave me with a concussion.

"After all this time, why am I not surprised?" I said. "You know, as friendships goes, ours isn't exactly based on honesty if you can't manage to tell me that you're an alien android pretending to be a school kid."

Bryce shrugged.

"We're not really that close." He pointed out.

"No, but I seem to remember getting the crap kicked out of me for sticking up for you," I pointed out, rather annoyed. "Do you think that maybe the fact that you're basically Superman wearing glasses could have been useful during any of those times."

"I'm really sorry," Bryce said, sincerely. "Chee are programmed for non-violence. I wasn't able to stop the bullies, even though I wanted to. But I did keep them from finding you again."

I remembered John and Erek's ability to hide me from plain site.

"The holographic projector," I said. "Everytime they seemed to be looking for me you lead them away."

"Erek was right about you." Bryce smiled. "I was kind of right about you too. It was my idea to let you know about us."

Were the Chee programmed to be annoyingly cryptic too? I wondered.

Bryce took me to his house, which wasn't far from the school. I had run away from enough bullies after school to kind of be jealous of him not having to run so far. But at the same time it had to suck living so close to school. At least where I lived it wasn't easy for them to figure out where I lived or how I got there, since I took different routes when I knew I was being followed. Of course my envy turned to annoyance the moment I realized Bryce was a Chee.

His mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Treet were at the breakfast table reading different sections of the morning paper and his younger brother, Joseph, who was already dressed and ready for school, was in the living room eating a bowl of cereal while watching _Histeria. _

"Hi guys," Mr. Treet said, looking up from his paper. When he saw me, he frowned. "Ah, Sean. I take it Bryce has filled you in."

I shrugged.

"I guess so, sir," I said. Chee or not, Mr. Treet was an adult and I was raised to be polite.

"We're sorry to hear about your father," Mrs. Treet said.

I almost choked up when she said it.

"It's okay," I said, looking into the living room. "I guess little Joey is one of you too, huh."

"Not exactly," Bryce said, with a laugh. "Joey is a human boy that Chee-Enos…that's my father, adopted. He doesn't know what we are and he won't ever know, so we'd like it if you kept that part to yourself."

I raised an eyebrow at that.

"But…aren't you kind of like the Yeerks then?" I asked, uncertain of how I felt about this. "How many kids are being raised by Yeerks right now?"

Mrs. Treet smiled and shook her head. I expected her to be offended by the comparison, but this threw me off.

"The Yeerks infest children too," she said. "They know no bounds. Joeseph has the potential to learn all that we have learned, without us forcing it upon him."

I gave Bryce a resentful stare.

"And when Joey gets picked on by bullies?"

"We can teach him to protect himself." Bryce explained. "We just can't act on our own."

"Is that why you chose to save me?" I asked, trying to keep my voice down. Joey laughed as Loud Kiddington shouted. "You and Erek? So I could do your dirty work for you against the Yeerks?"

"No," Bryce said with a sincerity that almost irritated me. Why did these Chee have to be so honest and sweet about it? "I asked John to save you because you were the only person who stood up for me when no one else would. And when I found out about your Dad, I didn't want you to become a Controller as well so I asked Erek to explain everything to you so you would know how to defend yourself. We may be billions of years old but we know how valuable a friend is."

"It's what the word Chee means," Mr. Treet explained. "Friend in the Pemalite language."

I swore if could just go one whole day without hearing another buzzword from someone I would run naked in the streets. But I couldn't help myself.

"What are the Pemalites?"


	7. Chapter 7

Mrs. Treet remained in the kitchen to take care of Joey. Bryce and Mister Treet took me into the basement. We told Joey we were moving some things around before Bryce had to go to school and surprisingly it worked.

"He has to be the most cooperative eight year-old I've ever met," I commented. "My cousin could use lessons from him."

Bryce giggled.

There was nothing outwardly strange about the basement. Boxes and totes lined the walls. Some marked, like Joey's baby clothes. Others were blank, but from the red and green color scheme I would have guessed Christmas decorations. Like the kitchen and the living room upstairs, it was easy to believe that the Chee could raise a human boy without raising any suspicions.

Mister Treet led us to a tool bench in the front of the basement. Hammers, screwdrivers and a tape measure lined a peg board over the bench. He turned to look at me.

"Now you've seen quite a bit," he said. "But Erek is telling us that you would like everything in larger doses."

"How do you-oh, that's right. He's talking to you on your network."

"That's correct."

"It must be great to have a chat room inside your head."

Mr. Treet smiled, patiently, reminding me of Erek.

"Are you ready for this?"

Something in his tone made me think that I wasn't ready for it. But, I was here. And an opportunity to learn anything that could help me wasn't going to wait for me to get in touch with my feelings. I nodded.

Mr. Treet reached for the tape measure and turned it, clockwise. There was a gentle lurch, like the movement of an elevator going down. My heart raced when I realized that the floor where we were standing was doing just that; going down.

"How far down does this go?" I asked.

Not, wow, it's an elevator in your basement. How far down it goes was the most relevant question. I guess after finding out that the kid who has been sitting in the same math class as I am is an android in his spare time, the elevator thing just sort of made sense to me.

And come on, be honest. A secret elevator is kind of cool, isn't it?

"We're going to about thirty feet below sea level," Bryce answered.

That made sense too. I mean, I took his word for it on the depth thing. But the fact that it was a nice round number like thirty made sense to me. Strange, I know.

When we stopped moving, it was like being transported into Willy Wonka's secret dog park. Where I expected to see a ceiling was a clear blue sky. Sunlight from an invisible source spilled onto a large grassy plain, filled with trees, bushes, stone walkways and benches. I even saw a river spilling into a kind of pond, though damned if I knew where it was coming from.

"Is this all an illusion?" I asked.

"Some of it," Bryce said. "The sunlight and the sky for example, but the grass is genuine and the trees. The pond and river is created by a little Pemalite technology and the stone walkways and benches were built by Chee who are playing woodworkers and landscapers."

"Playing…" I looked at Bryce and Mr. Treet. "So you guys take different parts. You live a certain life for a time and then you just change who you are like you change clothes."

Mr. Treet chuckled.

"It's not quite that simple," he said. "In the early days you could just walk to the next town and be someone else. Now we have to have a death sometime during our human lifespan that can be verified by those who know us. But you get the idea."

They led me to a bench and asked me to sit down. I heard barking and watched as two men played fetch with a golden retriever. Closer to the lake a basset hound and a German shepherd frolicked in the water while a woman and a younger boy called to them and laughed.

I assumed the people were all Chee. Every few feet or so was a Chee playing, grooming or feeding a dog, or a group of dogs.

"You look like dogs in real life," I said, watching the others play. "Was that what these…Pemalites looked like?"

"I told you he'd figure it out before we told him," Bryce said to Mr. Treet smugly, as if he had won a bet. He sat on the bench next to me. "The Pemalites looked very similar to us. We were created to be companions, friends to our masters. Our world looked very similar to this," –he waved his arm to indicate the park—, "Although the gravity was much more powerful. It took some getting used to when we first arrived on Earth."

One of the dogs, a large Rottweiler bounded over to me and sniffed at my shoes. I reached out for it and paused, looking up at Mr. Treet.

"May I?"

He nodded.

I scratched the dog behind the ears and it jumped on top, licking me. I felt pinned by its weight and I tried to gently push him off, but it was like trying to move living, breathing concrete.

"Down, boy," another Chee called. "Down, Rocks."

Rocks obeyed, but he stayed by my side as the Chee approached. His human form was that of a tall, Hispanic man with wavy black hair. Possibly a college student.

"Sorry about that," he said with accented English. "Rocks was a guard dog for a junk yard. When the owner closed the yard we took him down here because of his tenancy to attack people."

"You trained him well," I said, genuinely impressed.

"Dogs aren't so different from humans," Bryce explained. "They react to their environment and to how they were raised. After a while, even a raised guard dog can become playful and harmless."

_But he still has all that muscle, _I thought.

The man was about to lead Rocks away.

"Wait," I said.

I got to my knees and acquired Rocks, gently scratching him with one hand as I did so.

"I envy you," the Chee said, before leaving. Bryce and Mr. Treet made sounds of agreement as I turned to face them.

"Thank you for letting me acquire him," I said. "There aren't a lot of zoos in this area and that morph might be useful."

"It's no problem," Bryce said. "We can help you with most pet animals, but the larger animals like the tigers and bears are going to be a problem."

"How come?"

"Too dangerous," Mr. Treet answered. "Even with our abilities, we're limited on what we can willingly do. A tiger or a lion, or a larger predatory animal might try to hurt you, or we would have to hurt them to protect you."

Great, I thought. But there was no point in complaining about it. I decided to take advantage of learning all of the information I could about the Chee.

"So, how did you wind up on Earth?" I asked. "What happened to the Pemalites?"

"The Pemalites were a peaceful race," Bryce went on. "Unlike humans, they only had one or two children, so the problems of overpopulation or lack of food never existed. They were able to focus on music, art, and science."

As Bryce spoke, the area around me became an open stretch of space. It felt like sitting at the ominax. I was surrounded by stars, but the firm ground beneath me reminded me that it was all an illusion.

Below me was a planet. It wasn't Earth. I'd seen more than enough pictures of Earth from space to recognize that much. It wasn't even blue actually. More like a light beige color where blue would be and a rainbow of colors in parts that I guessed were continents and islands.

"Did Pablo Picasso design this planet?" I asked.

A large red moon floated in the void above us. When I looked "down" I could see a second and third moon, blue and yellow respectively.

"We were on the edge of a distant galaxy," Bryce explained. "No enemies and no reason to make them. We were happy on our planet."

The image changed. We were on the surface of the planet, surrounded by a field of red and green…grass, I guess. Up in the sky I could see a paler version of the blue moon.

I heard something that sounded like laughter. We followed the sound to a gathering of creatures that basically resembled dogs walking upright.

"I'm just guessing those are the Pemalites," I said. "Either that or I walked into a live action Pound Puppies movie."

"Definitely the Pemalites," Bryce confirmed. There was a sadness in his voice, that didn't sound like it was rehearsed or recorded. Android or not, Bryce was feeling real pain at these memories.

The Pemalite children, who were tossing some kind of fruit back and forth at each other, like a baseball, passed through us like ghosts. But I could see the joy in their large beady eyes as they played. A group of Pemalites sat beneath an umbrella shaped tree, where some of the fruit had come from. They were eating and making remarks to the children…like the adults catching up while the kids played.

It was so alien and yet…so familiar.

One of the children fell and scraped its knee. It cried out in pain and starting sobbing.

I felt sad for it, but I didn't what to do. A part of me wanted to run to it and try to comfort it until it's parents came, but I realized it was just an illusion. Then a gray android emerged from behind the trees and approached the child.

Speaking to it in a language made up of gentle growls and yelps, the android comforted the child until a Pemalite adult (a parent maybe) arrived. Rather than brush it aside, the Pemalite held the android's hand and together they soothed the child and sang to it.

"Was that you?" I asked.

"No," Bryce said. "That Chee was destroyed in the initial attack."

"Attack?"

There was some kind of platform in the distance and floating just a few feet from the ground was a large, elliptical object about twice the size of a jumbo jet. The image shimmered and suddenly we were closer to it.

"This is the Kori. It means bridge in the Pemalite language. This ship was meant to carry new friends from their world to ours and back." Bryce was silent for a while. "Crazy, I know."

"Not it isn't," I said, sincerely. Maybe I didn't know much about the Pemalite culture, but I knew what it was like to want to find friends. To want to share the things you learned with someone else, to find someone who likes the things you like.

"The point is we never got to launch it. Not for the reason my masters wanted us to."

The sky exploded.

All over the planet, a shaft of energy as bright as Earth's sun tore a jagged line across the ground. Through the alien forest, I watched as the Chee from the earlier image was disintegrated in the blast. Children, men, women, killed instantly. And as suddenly as the attack began it was over, leaving wounds in the beautiful planet I saw from above.

"It wasn't enough," Bryce continued.

The ships flew overhead, black with red markings; they emitted a high pitched scream. It was clearly being numbed to protect my ears, but I could almost feel the pain in the faces of the survivors. On the ground and covering their ears, desperately trying to push the sound out.

Shocked, I fell to my knees. I desperately crawled to one of the children, trying to reach out to comfort it as it cried out for a parent that was probably killed. My hand passed through it…he, or her. I couldn't tell the gender, but I wasn't going to think of them like animals.

Silence. The imagery shimmered around me.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Disease."

The word rang in my ears like a church bell. Pemalites, screaming out and writhing in agony. Their skin showing signs of disease at various stages. Small blemishes grew larger then bleed a vibrant purple liquid. Some of the diseased flesh had grown so weak that flesh and bones were visible.

I couldn't stop the tears. And to my surprise, neither could the Chee, who sat and held their masters as they died. The silence was worse than the screams.

When the silence came again, it never left. All that was left was the sound of the Kori taking off into the stars. Where I stood on that once beautiful field was a land covered in stones that I somehow recognized as grave markers.

"The Howlers destroyed millions of years of evolution and culture in just a few days." Bryce finished. "All we could save of our masters was the barest essence."

"I'm sorry."

Bryce sat down with me and placed a hand around my shoulders while I cried. Mr. Treet stood off to the side, watching me. He didn't need to see what was playing; he had all ready seen it.

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "I don't know what else to say."

"Don't apologize, please." Bryce said. "I'm glad to be able to share this with someone who cares. Your reaction is exactly why I didn't want the Yeerks to take you. Whether you choose to fight the Yeerks, or if you choose to run from your father, we will try to help you anyway we can. But you're a true Chee, Sean."

I truly didn't know whether or not to feel comforted by this. All I knew was that seeing the Pemalites destroyed in such an graphically violent way made me realize something. If the Chee couldn't stop the Howlers in an all out open war, what good would they be if the Yeerks discovered who they were? How good would their help be to me?


	8. Chapter 8

Have you ever had a big fight with your parents, right before going to school? Or work? Do you have to struggle to keep your eyes at the front of the classroom, listening to the teacher try to explain a complex fractions problem that won't have any relevance to you when you go home to have to deal with it all again?

The fractions problem actually wasn't that complex. It was a bag of two for a dollar peanuts at a dingy convenience store compared to the twelve course turkey dinner I had on my plate at that moment. And I was absolutely obligated to eat the fruit cake afterwards.

"Sean."

I snapped up and looked at Mrs. Sparrow. Had I fallen asleep? The giggling of Tasha and her little friend in the back corner made me think so.

"Sean, do you know the answer?" Sparrow asked. That towering look of condescension and the annoyed way she had her hand on her overly nourished hip confirmed that I had in fact dozed off in class.

"No," I said honestly. "It's…I'm having a hard time following."

Another choir of laughter, also a smattering of, "what an idiot" from Bill Higgins and others desk. Mrs. Sparrow didn't bother addressing them, of course.

"If I catch you asleep again, you can spend the afternoon in detention trying to figure it out." Sparrow said, turning back to the board.

I suppose I should have been grateful. She didn't give me a detention or try to grill me more about the problem. Maybe it was easier for her to let my classmates punish me by pointing out my humiliation.

"Did you have fun this weekend?" Bill asked, pushing me against the locker as he passed. It was the end of the school day and there was hardly anyone in the building. I tried to get out of here as quickly as possible at the end of the day, but Mrs. Sparrow wasn't done reading me the riot act over one of the two times in seven school years that I had ever fallen asleep in class.

"Leave me alone," I said, trying to keep moving.

Bill kept following me.

"What was that?" He said in a louder tone.

I stopped and glared at him. Strangely enough I didn't feel the rush of adrenaline I usually get when Bill or one of the others harass me.

"Oooh, am I pissing you off?"

"You're making me kind of upset."

We both turned to see Bryce standing just a few steps away. Dressed in khaki pants and a plaid sweater similar to what he wore on his first day vest, it was easy to see why Bryce got picked on in the beginning.

For a second, I thought Bryce might actually try to restrain Bill. Bill had a good foot on either of us, but he was definitely no match for a Chee.

"Why don't you move along Brace?" Bill suggested. He still thought Brace was the funniest nickname in the world and so far no one had challenged him on that.

"Are you afraid of witnesses?" Bryce asked. His tone was firm, but not challenging.

Bill looked at me, smirked and turned to Bryce.

"Lucky day Sean," he said. To Bryce, he added, "You just pissed me off even more."

"Mr. Higgins!"

I looked up and saw Ms. Calintuno, the principal rounding the corner behind Bryce. She was tall and lanky, and whatever dress she wore always looked like it was hanging from a hook in a closet as opposed to a living person. But the fire in her eyes and the determined stride gave her life and it was enough to scare the life out of Bill Higgins.

"Get back here!" She shouted as Bill rounded a corner and disappeared.

I turned to Bryce questioningly when we were alone again.

"Thank you. But what if the real Calintuno sees that?"

Bryce shrugged.

"She's in her office right now. Bill will get caught running past it and will likely get a detention for running." He explained.

I laughed, trying to imagine the situation. Suddenly the concept of being a literal fly on the wall as Bill tried to explain his way further and further into detention…or worse, the psych ward.

"How are you?" Bryce asked, as we walked together. "You were distracted in class."

"Gee, you think?" I lowered my voice as a janitor stepped out of a classroom. "I can turn into animals suddenly, my Dad is a prisoner of war inside his own head, and, oh yeah, I watched your species die in 3D."

"You know if we could do something about it, we would," Bryce said. I didn't know who he was trying to convince, but he was trying pretty hard. "Some of us really wish we could change our programming, but we can't. All we can do is try to help you as best we can."

"You don't have much of a choice now," I pointed out. "What are you planning to do if I slip up and get infested? The Yeerks will know about you."

Bryce paused and sighed.

"We know that." He said. "Erek knew it too. Some of us had all ready made the decision to tell you everything while the rest of us are still upset over it. You have to understand that this is the second time in eons the Chee have been divided on a subject."

"Second? What, you mean over the Howlers?"

"No." Bryce gave me a long sad look. "We had to accept our master's fates because it was what we were directly ordered to do. But when we came to Earth and discovered your species and all it was capable of doing, we began to question our programming. The Pemalites were gone and so we were our own species all of a sudden. Then in the 1930's through the 40's, something terrible happened. Do you know about the Holocaust?"

I nodded.

"I was a factory worker in Poland," Bryce explained. "I was forced to watch my friends and neighbors, humans, get pulled off the streets into trucks, never to be seen again. Some of us tried to hide the persecuted, but if the Nazis discovered us, we were powerless. Their weapons were useless on us, but we could fake our deaths. We had to. But the humans we tried to help…"

We stepped outside and I took a deep breath. It was a beautiful afternoon. Rain clouds were moving in from the west and I knew from the weather report that it would be mostly soggy this evening. Typical New England weather.

"I'm sorry about all you went through," I said. "But this is now. This is the present and the Yeerks are the problem here and now, in the present. So how are you going to help me here and now and in a way that won't defy your programming?"

Bryce appeared to be thinking about it. That or he was genuinely stumped and didn't want to share that fact with me.

As we walked in silence, I looked around my small, quaint town. It's a bit of a hub, with three different state borders located about an hour's drive each direction. The safest road to my house takes me along Main Street, where all of the privately owned businesses and restaurants line the road.

There was a line of traffic all the way down to the Four Corners. Cars, trucks, RV's, tour busses and bicyclists, all on their way through here to somewhere else. What use did the Yeerks have for a place like this? Why did Dad's Yeerk have to come back here?

We stopped at a bridge over the river and leaned against the concrete rail. A manmade dam created a pool that kids swam in during the warmer months. Right now there were large brook trout swimming around in it.

_That'd be cool_, I thought. Flying and swimming, swimming and _breathing_ underwater. First chance I got, I was getting some kind of water morph. No doubt.

"Erek knew about the infestation," I said, breaking the silence. "How?"

"Do you know about the Sharing?" Bryce asked.

I shook my head.

"The Sharing is one of the legitimate groups that were appropriating construction equipment and materials. On the surface it's like a club, or group organization, like the Cub Scouts. But in reality it's a front for the Yeerks to gain voluntary hosts."

"Those were the people that called Dad." I realized. "His contact was one of them, wasn't he?"

"Yes." Bryce paused for a minute. "Most of us have infiltrated the invasion. We join the Sharing and become voluntary hosts. Only the Yeerk doesn't take control of us. We learn everything it knows and we keep it alive by generating Kandrona rays."

"That's why John was with those controllers at the construction site."

Bryce paused again. I watched him as he seemed to be staring thoughtfully at the water. Why did I get the feeling that he was holding something from me?

"So Erek knew my Dad was going to be infested," I said. "Or he saw him get infested. But, why did the Yeerk come back here if the pool is back there? I overheard him on the phone. He's trying to get some kind of subterfuge going against Visser Three. It'd be like a five year old running away from home only to come back because he was hungry."

"Well the Kandrona on Earth is artificial. This Yeerk might have a few portable generators stashed away somewhere."

"And you don't know who Dad's Yeerk is?"

Bryce shook his head.

"Most of the Chee playing controllers are in low ranking positions," he said. "Some Yeerks are kept in the dark about crucial missions, to keep one person from sinking the ship, so to speak."

"Then I need to follow him." I said, finally. "That's all there is to it. Can you guys help me out there?"

Bryce nodded.

"Erek was about to suggest the same thing," he said, with a grin. "One of us can take your place at school for as long as you need us to."

"Perfect." I ran my head through my hair a few times. "I need to get some sleep. Hopefully I wake up alone tomorrow."


	9. Chapter 9

_When Sean meets Paul, Jake, Tobias and the other Animorphs are still asleep as they are three hours behind Sean. It has been a day since the attack on the Yeerk Pool and the others are still reeling over the news that Tobias is trapped as a hawk now, among other things._

_To work this out in her head, Cassie wakes up and does a walk around her barn to make sure the animals are all right. She notices a few birds of prey in cages in the barn, including a new osprey and a bald eagle that came in the day before and begins making mental notes._

Amazingly, I was able to get to sleep. The body has that way of not giving a crap what you want. I learned this a few times when I was trying to stay awake for a really good Godzilla movie that wasn't on until three in the morning on the Disney Channel. Apparently living with a guy who could decide to make you a pawn in an alien war has about the same level of urgency.

Even more amazing was the fact that I did wake up alone the next morning. I almost felt insulted that this Yeerk didn't consider me enough of a threat to bother infesting. But it was starting to make sense too.

Dad wrote articles exposing people just like this Yeerk. Usually it was some guy who had been working at the job, or organization for a while. He felt he was owed more than what he was getting, whether it was true or not. And in order to get it, he formed the most elaborate and usually self defeating plan possible.

If Visser Three was so powerful that the Chee couldn't figure out his every move, what did this Yeerk think it could do? And would its antics get it killed and take my Dad down with it?

No. My first plan of action was to find out just how big this was. If I could get Dad out of the lime light long enough to starve the Yeerk out of him, I could have the Chee hide him somewhere safe before the rest of the Yeerks knew anything about it.

Then we were both going to work out a plan of action that exposed the Yeerk invasion to the rest of the world. With the information I helped to gather, Dad would write the biggest story of his or any other reporter's career.

I was up at five, as usual. I rarely sleep late, even on weekends.

"Feeling better?" Dad asked.

"Much better," I said, honestly. I poured a glass of orange juice while I waited for my bagel in the toaster.

Dad was leaning against the counter reading a paper and drinking his coffee. Just like the scene at the Treet's house, everything was so normal about this morning.

"Did anyone buy your article yet?" I asked, nonchalantly.

"Oh, I'm still going through all my notes." Dad answered.

It was the kind of quick, casual answer Dad would give. The Yeerk had gotten better overnight. That meant I had to be more careful too. I spread almond nut butter on my bagel and sat at the table to eat.

"Did you get all your homework done?" Dad sat in the chair next to mine and sat down.

"Yeah," I said. "A couple math problems and I had to write some definitions down. I guess they decided to give me a break on the make-up work."

"That's good," he said.

He handed me the "funnies" section while he turned to the sports page. It was so normal and perfect that I almost thought I could delude myself into believing everything was okay.

"I was going to head down to the school a little early," I said. "Mister Jones lets kids into woodshop early and I was thinking of trying to make a sword or something."

Dad snorted. Just the reaction I expected.

"Why a sword?"

I shrugged. "You never know. It might come in handy."

He just laughed and shook his head.

"Okay, well, good luck with that."

After I finished eating I started out to school. But instead of going the way I came, I took a back road that lead to a footbridge over the river. The lower half of the golf course could be seen from the bridge. My contact was waiting for me at pavilion where country club members ate lunch.

There was a nice fog rising up from the river, and it made the old wood of the railing moist glistening in the early rays of sun. I stopped in the middle and took a deep breath. The ground was moist from last night's rain and there were worms on the concrete where the sidewalk began.

I followed the road up to the entrance of the country club. There were houses across the street and lights were on. Before long the early commuters would be getting into their cars. Joggers and dog walkers would be using the golf course, or just passing by. And the country club's cooks, dishwashers, mechanics and groundskeepers would be getting in to start their day, completely unaware that the universe was way more complicated than they realized.

The main building that held the locker room, the tennis court and the pavilion was empty. The golf carts sat behind a fence and were locked in. Just a few feet away, the club owner's bungalow sat in the slowly dissipating fog. I didn't know his routine, but I was pretty sure country clubs had security on staff, so I was wary.

An older boy sat at one of the picnic tables. Dressed in shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt, he looked like he had just been out on a morning jog. He looked up as I approached.

"You thirsty?" He asked

I let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, do you have pear juice?" I replied, with my half of the password.

Bryce and I worked it out the day before. The boy got up and came to me, holding out his hand as he smiled.

"My name's Paul."

"Good to meet you," I said. "How many of you guys are there?"

"We number in the thousands," Paul said. "You could fit the entire Chee population into the Twin Towers and still have room."

"Nice."

I placed my backpack on the picnic table.

"You know about the two hour limit?" Paul asked.

"Yes," I said. "Erek explained that to me early on."

"All right. Do you have anything skin tight? Like bike shorts, or diving gear?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"I haven't had much reason to go scuba diving lately and I don't ride a bike," I answered. "Why?"

"Because they can morph with your body so you won't wind up naked after you've morphed out of your loose clothing," Paul explained. "They also won't shred if you morph something larger than yourself."

Had I been paying more attention that moment, I would have asked Paul how he or any other Chee knew this little fact about morphing. I highly doubted there was Morphing for Dummies book at the library I didn't know about. Unfortunately it was the words "morph something larger" that caught my attention. But the idea of morphing into a rhinoceros or an elephant became the big neon lights above the doors that distracted my thirteen year-old brain, when my investigator's training-by-proxy really should have kicked in and noticed the small print disclaimer reading 'made in Taiwan' at the bottom.

"Oh," was my response. "Well…I didn't think of that."

"It's okay," Paul said, going into his own backpack. "I was a diving instructor in the 80's."

An image of a Chee in android form with flippers and a snorkel flashed through my mind.

Paul handed me a folded suit.

"Here," he said. "You can wear it under your clothes and hardly anyone will notice."

I unfolded it. It was a wetsuit.

"How do I explain this to Dad?" I asked. "The yeerk might go through my closet for some reason."

Paul shrugged.

"Do you get a regular allowance?" He asked.

I thought about it. Wetsuits like this were pretty expensive, so I couldn't very well say I saved up and just decided to buy it one day. I just wasn't that whimsical with money.

"I'll figure something out," I said. "I appreciate this, seriously."

Paul pointed to men's room door at the end of the pavilion.

"I unlocked it for you," he said. "I'll let you know if anyone approaches."

I left my backpack with Paul and went into change. The suit was smooth and tight against my body, but it wasn't uncomfortable. I wasn't looking forward to how hot it would make me later in the day, but it was a temporary solution. As soon I was able to, I would have to buy some cheap bike shorts at a thrift shop. I could explain that away easily.

Paul was looking through my homework when I went back outside. Only this time, he wasn't Paul. He was me.

"If there's a part of this I'm supposed to be used to, will you let me know?" I asked.

"I" turned around and grinned. It was like watching an episode of the Patty Duke show. My sandy blond hair was the same length and cut. He even had the small birthmark below my left eye. The one that kind of looks like a hammer, that I used to tell people was a sign that I was the son of the Norse god Thor.

He was wearing a perfect copy of the black jeans and black and gray NYU t-shirt that I held in my hands. The shoes and socks…everything matched.

"I'll take those," Paul said in my voice. I handed my clothes over and watched as he folded them. Were all Chee laundry attendants at some point, or did they just hate messy clothes? "Do you use your locker at school?"

"Only my gym locker," I said, truthfully. "Until the school board decides that math is a subject worth spending money on, I only have three actual books to carry. And all of my homework goes in a five subject notebook in the binder, so my backpack isn't as heavy as it looks."

I watched myself test the weight of the pack.

"Nice and light," he said. "I'll leave your clothes in the gym locker then. If you're not at the school when it gets out, I'll be sure to bring them home."

"Thanks again," was all I could say.

Then I looked around.

"No one can see us right now," Paul assured me.

I took a deep breath and focused on the seagull. The memory of suddenly having to breath with turkey organs was fresh in my mind and I stayed focused this time.

This time the bones were the first things to change. They crunched and twisted as they shrank and became hollow. As my arms and hands twisted and flattened to become wings, gray feathers sprouted from the fabric of the wetsuit and met with the lighter colored feathers beneath the wings.

I started to shrink, but unlike with the turkey morph, I didn't get fatter. My belly did get rounder and a brighter shade of white, but the fattiness remained in the lower half of my body.

My chin and neck melted together and became one smooth, narrow curve. I felt a strange sensation as my butt seemed to shrink.

That was weird, I thought…well, not out loud exactly. But whatever the thought-speak equivalent of thinking out loud is considered.

"How does it feel?" Paul asked. Though my ears were mostly tiny holes, the seagull could hear the voice very clearly and somehow my human mind was able to translate the words.

It's weird, but not painful. Ooh, my eyes traveled to the sides of my head, just like with the turkey morph. There was squishiness as they changed larger, rounder. I was standing on webbed feet that ended in tiny claws. Much better than a turkey.

Paul laughed.

"I'd better get to school," he said. "Will you be all right?"

I cocked my head to one side and looked up at…me. Then I noticed the picnic table, and had memories from when I was a toddler and furniture like this was "big" to me. With an experimental stretch, I flapped my wings and jumped up onto the seat.

Dude!

"Good luck," Paul said.

Thanks. See you soon.

I aimed for the outside and flapped my wings again. Within seconds I was riding currents of air over the golf course. If I had been human, my heart would be pounding a mile a minute. As is, the seagull's instincts were pretty strong. It was at home up here and it knew what it was doing.


	10. Chapter 10

Flying is…it's flying. There's just no other way to describe it. But it wasn't guided or controlled flying like the jet. The seagull was like a living kite, allowing the strong gusts of wind to push it in one direction.

I had to actually force myself towards the road. Fortunately, there's one thing that the seagull's brain had in common with the turkey: food.

There's a McDonalds near my house. Although the land and road was different from this angle, the garbage was the same. I hovered over the parking lot and just kind of "hung out". I'm not sure I've ever loitered outside of McDonalds before, but somehow I doubted the watch dog parenting groups in this town would have this situation in mind.

French fry! There was the unmistakable golden tint of a French fry lying on the ground near the Dumpster. Over by a van, a mother sat beside her small daughter with the back door slid open. They must have been getting ready for a long road trip to be out this early. But the only thing on the gull's mind right then was the piece of hash brown that the little girl dropped.

Another seagull landed on the parking lot a few feet from the car. Whoa! That food is mine dammit! I landed as close to the gull as possible and cawed, loudly. It took notice, but only jumped back to the curb.

The little girl pointed at and said something unintelligible.

"Those are seagulls," the mom said. "I think they want your hash brown."

In response, the little girl threw another piece of it closer. I flared my wings, daring the other gull to make a move as I fluttered towards the food. It was like yesterday morning all over again.

The little girl laughed as I picked up the hash brown and swallowed it. There was no real taste that I could recognize. I could feel the warmth and the crushed potato was rough against my throat, but it went down.

Out of the corner of my eye, a familiar car pulled into parking lot and got in line for the drive-in. I pressed the seagull's instincts out of the way and took to the air. On top of the Golden Arches sign, I had a good view of Dad's car. The Yeerk must have figured out that Dad is nothing without at least three cups of coffee in the morning.

_He likes his sausage Mcmuffin too, Yeerk _I thought, angrily. _And when I get through with you, they're going to add slug to the menu._

When he was on the road again, I tried to keep up. But, man flying is hard.

It turns out seagulls aren't distance fliers at all. After about half a mile the flapping was getting exhausting and when the wind blew, the gull didn't ride on it so much as give in to it. It's strange how I thought of that as the good part of flying at first.

At one point the wind blew me way over by the high school. I turned my head to keep the car in sight and that only created more problems as my head acted like a rudder. Finally I lost complete track of the car.

Great. I mentally kicked myself.

I tried to make it back to Main Street. I knew the road Dad took to get to work, but I had no idea if that was where he was going. And I didn't know how long I had been in morph, so I knew I'd have to find somewhere to land or I was going to be a seagull for the rest of my life.

There were students and teachers milling about on the high school campus. But the roof was pleasantly free of people, so I landed above the Career Development center. The beauty part of a small town like this is that there are no buildings near the school. It's mostly just fields, trees and side streets. There's the Veteran's Home and a soccer field across the street from the school, but I took cover behind a roof access shed and no one would see me from there.

Morphing out was exhausting, so I sat down and took a moment to think. If I didn't know where the yeerk was going, there was no point in trying to find the car. So I tried to put myself in Dad's shoes. What would be the best way to find out where he was going?

Then I remembered his cell phone. It's amazing how those little things tend to escape you.

As I re-morphed, I tried to remember where the most private payphones were. I needed a place where I could make a call to Dad's phone without being seen by someone I knew. Or worse, someone he knew.

In the end I followed the flood wall. Wind from the river kept me a float and if I adjusted my wings slightly, I could keep from being blown off course. When I was close I banked to the left and followed the street and the houses until I saw a Dumpster behind a red brick building. The glass and other bits of garbage near the butcher shop gave me pause as I landed on the pavement.

_That's right, _I thought. _No shoes._

Oh well. There was a space between the dumpster and river bank. There were houses on the other side of the river, but trees and large bushes protected me from view as I de-morphed. The wetsuit protected me from getting scratched by stray branches and as I grew in size, I had to remember not to move from behind the Dumpster until the morph was complete.

Then the oddity of seeing a kid in a black wetsuit on the neighbor to the outskirts of town during a school day struck me as…well, odd. It was bound to strike someone else that way too.

On the ground and fully de-morphed, I felt unbelievably exposed. Plus the transition from being up there, in the sky, and suddenly being earthbound…it felt like just getting out of the water after swimming for an hour, with gravity at my body and clothes.

Then there was the trek across the small parking space behind the butcher shop, which is exposed to a busy road near an intersection…and the building where the town's superintendant works is about half a mile down this road. Wow, I planned this out well.

"Ouch!" I had to bite my tongue as a shard of glass dug into my bare foot.

Gripping the Dumpster for balance I lifted the now bloodied foot up and pulled the glass out.

_It'll heal when I morph back, it'll heal when I morph back, it'll- _I kept that mantra going in my head until I got to the sidewalk. Then I felt even more exposed as a car drove to the intersection and stopped at the red light. The payphone I was looking for was located right on the corner, in front of the shop, where anyone coming off Main Street, or coming in from Woodford, or any of the employees at that building where the superintendant works could see me at any given moment.

Oh and I didn't have any change on me to use the payphone. Dad's cell phone was not a toll free number.

As I stood there, wondering just how much of a threat I was presenting to the Yeerks at this moment the back door of the butcher shop opened. A man, probably about forty and wearing a greasy apron stepped out, presumably to smoke a cigarette. He took one look at me and his jaw dropped.

"Are you okay?" He asked. He noticed my foot. "What happened to you?"

"I…uh…,"

Somehow he wasn't impressed by my brilliant response. But he did see the trail of blood I was leaving.

"Come on in here," he said. Before I could protest he came over and started kicking the glass out of my way. He then helped me into the shop and made me sit on the stool next to the cutting table. The floor was surprisingly clean considering the table was covered in blood and there were all kinds of meat hanging from hooks. "Jeez kid, what are you doing out here? Is this some kind of hazing ritual they have you doing?"

I wasn't sure who _they _were supposed to be. I'm guessing he thought I was part of some school swim team or something. Although at that point I wasn't sure I had the right to be guessing anything, since I had largely guessed that this was going to work out.

The guy was nice enough. He took out the first aid kit and went to work cleaning the cut on my foot.

"Thank you," I muttered.

"Hey, no problem," he said. "I did all kinds of crazy stuff when I was your age. Are you on the swim team?"

"Yeah," I said, simply. "We were at the rec center doing laps. They…made me walk back to campus barefoot.

The guy snorted. I winced as he wiped the blood away with gauze.

"These initiations get pretty grizzly every year. One of these days someone's going to get killed." He took a closer look at the foot before placing a bandage over it and wrapping it in about a foot of gauze. When he was satisfied that he said, "You're going to have to get this looked at. Do you want to call your parents and tell them what happened?"

_Dad, I was found barefoot in a parking lot because I was trying to find out where the Yeerk in your head was taking you. No, no, I was following you from the air. Yup, I can morph into stuff, isn't that cool?_

Of course that might have been a smarter plan than trying to call him from a payphone. It did give me an idea though.

"I think my dad might be at work," I said. "Can I use your phone to call him?"

"Of course, sit tight."

The guy left the room. For a second I considered trying to bolt, but I wasn't going anywhere dressed like this. I couldn't morph that fast and anyway; this shop was in my hometown. It was only a matter of time before I ran into this guy again.

Frick! This had to the worse planned mission in history.

"Here you go."

The guy brought the cordless headset to me and stood off to the side. Suddenly a thought crossed my mind. As I took the phone, I marveled at how inspiration can strike at the most inappropriate of times as opposed to the minutes when it would have been far more helpful.

"Listen," I said, holding out my hand. "Thank you for understanding and everything."

"Not a problem." The man held his hand out.

I took it and concentrated. Sure enough he started to zone out. Cautiously I glanced out at the main store and I could see a customer lingering near the shelves. Presumably there was a cashier at the front of the store, but I didn't have much time.

I dialed the main office of Dad's newspaper. The secretary answered on the third ring.

"Yes, is Mark - there?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, he's in Shaftsbury right now," she replied.

"Oh, is that where he is?" I said, trying to sound surprised. "I was actually supposed to meet him for an interview, but I didn't know he'd be there all ready."

"Yeah. He stopped by the office earlier and then he headed up to the church to meet with Father Mosely."

Shaftsbury is a small town with only a handful of churches. It wouldn't be a challenge to find Dad's car now. I hit the end button and placed the phone on the table. Then I lead the butcher to the door, continuing to acquire him as I morphed back to seagull.

Bing!

Someone wanted service at the counter. Dammit.

The morphing trance stopped as I was halfway to seagull.

"What the hell?"The butcher jumped back.

"Yu-hur," my voice petered off as my larynx disappeared.

I am your guardian spirit, I said.

"My what?"

Bing! Bing!

"Hey, George, are you back there?"

George just glared at me, stunned as I finished the morph. I had to get going, but I couldn't leave him like this.

You have cured me in a time of need, I went on, making my thought voice as ethereal and mystical sounding as possible. I thank you and I will reward you with advice. Stop smoking and exercise more and your business will boom!

Before George could say anything, I hopped out of the still open door and flew away. I don't know if he bought my story. But hopefully the acquiring trance had him in enough of a haze that he'd write me off as a strong hit of whatever was in the cigarettes he's been smoking. And maybe that little pep talk I gave would push him in a positive direction and I'd get a little karma.

Because on my own, like this, I knew I wasn't going to last much longer.


	11. Chapter 11

Shaftsbury turned out to be a bit of a workout for an animal that's used to lakes and oceans. As the elevation rose slightly and Harwood Hill got higher, I literally felt like I was walking up that steep road. The only thing I was grateful for was that I wasn't on the road the way these people drove.

My wings were beginning to ache from strain. I wasn't an expert, but that couldn't be a good sign. Seagulls just aren't inland birds. To top it off, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye that made the seagull instincts wary. A hawk was hovering over the apple orchard, probably ready to score some squirrel or mouse…or some awkwardly flying bird that's normally happiest near a lake, ocean, or river.

I managed to avoid being on the menu as the hawk continued to circle. But it did remind me that hawks were common in this part of the state. And form the height this one was soaring at it wouldn't hurt to try to get an upgrade on my current model.

Fortunately the church my Dad had gone to wasn't exactly in Shaftsbury, but rather a half a mile from the town border and just off the corner of a busy intersection. I saw his car parked the back lot. A wet field stretched out behind the church. The highway was very busy and except for a few houses and the miniature Sunny Hill Go-Cart track and Miniature Golf Course the area was mostly rural and surrounded by trees.

Sunny Hill was across the street and open for business, but with school in session there were only two people actually playing golf. I landed near the picnic tables and tried to assess the situation. Through a window in the main building where people went to get putters and balls I could see two employees. A blond girl sat by the window reading something and I could only make out the back of someone.

No one paid attention to me of course. There was nothing at all unusual about a bird looking for scraps of food in an open picnic area. I fluttered to the other side of the building, as if I had just seen a piece of bread hit the ground. There was a side entrance with a sign that said "restrooms" attached to a propped door that was propped open by a milk crate.

I got as close as I could without drawing attention, but I couldn't see anything inside that I could use. My plan was to morph out and possibly morph into the dog before going to the church. But with the traffic as heavy as it was, there was no way a dog could make it across the highway. There are drivers in this town that will plow over a line of preschoolers without glancing in the mirror.

And how long was I in morph this time? Damn, I would need to start keeping an eye on that. I did not want to be stuck as a seagull for the rest of my life. Wanting to at least have as much time as possible, I flew over to some bushes and de-morphed again.

By this time I was ready for a nap. I half considered just going home and figuring out what to do tomorrow, now that I knew for certain where Dad was. That and the constant nagging of some internal force that kept asking, "What the hell are you doing? Just kidnap your dad, hold him for three days and get yourselves the hell out of there!"

No. I told myself. I went through this much just to get here and as I forced myself to morph back into a seagull I knew I was in the whole way.

This wasn't just about me and my Dad. There was something big going on here. If it was the reverse and Dad had the morphing power instead of me, he would use it to investigate and expose the Yeerks. As his son, I had to do what I knew he would have done as an investigative journalist.

So once more I took to the air, flying straight for the church. Nothing suspicious. The parking lot was clean and free of trash of course, but the seagull's vision could make out flying bugs and beetles in the grass and around the building. Though it preferred a free meal, the gull was a capable hunter as well and it helped me keep the instincts under control.

I circled the church a few times. There were only a few windows in the left half of the building. One or two along the bottom may have lead into a basement and on the right hand, nearest to the side parking there were two smaller windows into what I guessed were the bathrooms. The front wooden doors were huge and probably swung outwards

I didn't know how big the church was, nor could I see Reverend Mosely through any of the windows, but something told me I didn't want to go through the front door. For one thing, doors that size tend to make a lot of noise and this church, with the large triangular roof in the center, was probably built like an amphitheater. Every little noise could be heard.

So I swung down around the left side of the building and tried to see if there was an open window. There was a ground level window open a crack, but it wasn't big enough for a seagull to get through. I floated to the ground, looking inside. It looked like an office. There was no screen on the inside, so a person could easily climb in. I de-morphed behind the corner closest to the window.

The edge of the hill was surrounded by trees, so it was unlikely anyone could see me. Then I snuck as quietly as possible towards the window, keeping low to the ground as a car whipped by the church. I don't know what I was planning to explain to the cops if I got caught doing this, but, so far I managed to find some way out of these little predicaments so I wasn't going to worry anymore.

After a bit of struggle, I was able to push the window a few inches. But a squeaking noise forced me to stop.

"What was that?" Someone asked.

_Nothing, _I desperately though, ducking below the window.

The door to the room opened and I heard footsteps. Against my body's protests I concentrated on Rocks as I bolted back to the little corner.

"Did you leave that open?" My dad's voice.

"Yes," a second man said. "The breeze on a day like this is soothing and the smell of the hillside calms my host down."

"Sestran, perhaps you have been enjoying your new found freedom a little too much," Dad's Yeerk said in a tone that Dad would never speak to another person with. "But are you aware that there may be Andalites running loose on the planet?"

There was a pause. For a second I was afraid that the Yeerks had heard my spine crunch and shrinking. I expected my hearing to get weaker, but it only got stronger. Soon I could hear Sestran, the Yeerk controlling Reverend Mosely breathing heavily.

"There was talk on the Z-space transponder of Andalite bandits surviving the destruction of the dome ship," Sestran replied. "But they were only reported at the California pool. Surely you don't think they could have-"

Someone slapped the reverend. I heard the smack of hand against cheek, but my heart jumped.

_It wasn't your dad,_ I tried to remind myself. _That was the Yeerk, not dad. Dad has spoken to convicted child molesters far nicer than this Yeerk is speaking to the reverend. And Dad would not hit someone._

As quickly as my anger and fear came, they melted as the mind of the dog took over.

"I am the only one thinking it seems," Dad's Yeerk continued. "There is no telling how many Andalites escaped to Earth or where they are. If they continue to keep Esplin busy in his corner of the planet, fine. But if just one of them were to track me here and draw attention to our operation it would be rather disastrous for us all. Wouldn't you agree, Sestran?"

"Yes…forgive me…Kullan 926."

The dog part of me really wanted to run through that field. As the morph finished, I could hear the conversation more clearly. I could smell the sweat, old coffee, cleaning supplies the scent of the hardwood floors from inside. And outside the scent of flowers and grass, and manure from the farm just a few miles down the road was all around me. But I had to fight the instincts. Rocks, the junk yard guard dog with a penchant for attacking people that nearly got him put to sleep, was a playful and happy animal. I used the mood to keep from getting upset. But the conversation was only making it harder not to give into the urge to chase a really bold squirrel that was searching for food at the bottom of the hill.

"Of the Yeerks who were receptive to my suggestions, only six had the courage to join my side," Kullan said. "The rest will no doubt be experiencing a rather, serious illness that will make them useless to me, but no longer a threat."

"Just six?" Sestran sounded doubtful, but guarded.

"Only two Taxxons, a Hork-Bajir and a few human-controllers," Kullan confirmed. "Forham smuggled them out during the Andalite attack on the pool and now they are presumed dead."

"Forgive me for asking Kullan. But how effective are nine of us-I don't mean to doubt you, sir."

Movement. I could hear someone moving across the carpeted room to the window. I tucked my body as close to the ground as possible, even going as far as to rest my head on the grass. If they saw me they might think I was just someone's dog who wandered too far from home and fell asleep.

"Every Yeerk I approached had one thing in common Sestran. They were nearing the end of their lifecycles. In just a few short days six will become thousands. A new generation of Yeerks raised in the rays of my own Kandrona and ready to serve me."

My ears perked up as a car pulled into the parking lot. A second vehicle, a can by the sound of it, pulled into the side parking lot.

"That must be them," Kullan said.

Kullan and Sestran left the room. I bounded around the back of the church, giving in to the dog's urge to sniff things. There were certainly some interesting things to smell and two of those scents were completely alien to the dog's instincts.

Staying as low as I could, I padded around the back. Unfortunately Rottweilers are lousier for stealth than wearing a suit meant for scuba diving as from the nearest body of saltwater as possible. But I kept up the dog act, pretending like I was looking for a place to pee. Then the dog got another whiff of that alien smell and I couldn't fight the urge to look up.

A man got out of the truck and opened the sliding rear door, just as a man dressed in black khakis and button down white shirt emerged from the side entrance. Of course black and white was all I could see. Damn, the colorblind thing was dead on.

But the one thing that the dog couldn't miss was the six foot tall creature that emerged from the back of the truck. With flat, claw like feet and a spike raking down from the ankle, it reminded me of the T-Rex's foot in Jurassic Park and a tail swept behind it, ending in a pretty vicious looking blade. Big and muscular, its neck was long and serpentine, ending in a lizard like head with a serrated beak-like mouth. Two forward raking spikes sat in a row along the forehead and as it swung its head to glance at me, I saw its large curious eyes.

"Hurc, galla Dog?" The creature spoke in deep guttural voice as it pointed a powerful arm in my direction. The blades along the elbow and the wrist didn't strike me as an odd decorative choice for some reason.

"No," the reverend said, taking one glance at me. "It's just a stray. They are common in this part of the country."

My Dad emerged from behind the reverend and glared at me, then at the controller I assumed was Sestran.

"Grab it, just to be sure." He said. "If it is just a stray we'll feed it to the Taxxons. If not, it may prove valuable."

The creature lunged for me. Thankfully the Dog and I were on the same page.


	12. Chapter 12

Here's the thing about four legs. They're a lot handier than two. That's it, that's the redeeming quality of having four legs. It may not seem like much. Like a coupon for twenty cents off of a sundae at Friendly's. But it's when you finally count out the remainder of your change and cash that you come to be grateful that you still have that coupon and that you are able to use it.

Man, I need to work on my comparisons. The point is I bolted down, into the field and for the cover of the trees. The human-controllers may as well have been tortoises with large steel weights attached to their legs. (Tortoise morph. Add that one to the list.) The terrain was uneven and would have slowed me down. I might have event ripped on a tuft of grass, or a sinkhole.

But with the dog's legs and the way natural inclination towards having its head to the ground, I was able to see those little obstacles sooner and react to them quicker. A newer instinct kicked in. Something that was even more useful as a beam of light pierced the ground just inches ahead of me.

Dracon beams! They were seriously going to risk someone from the highway seeing this.

"Stop, you fool!" I heard a human voice say. Okay, so the human controllers had enough foresight. Then the Yeerk who was controlling that alien must have been the one to fire.

The only reason I came to that conclusion was because I could hear something big and heavy crashing through the trees behind me. When I stopped to see what it was, my heart stopped. It was the alien, the tall one with the blades. With its bulk and size I thought I'd lose it in the woods. But there it was, two feet above me, climbing and jumping from tree to tree like the love child of George of the Jungle, a Sleestack and a lawnmower.

I so want one of those, I thought to myself, trying to run faster.

That's how my brain works. I'm running for my life from my own father, a minister and an alien (well, more obviously alien than the Yeerks, of course) and it's the idea of getting to acquire and morph something that takes up space in my thoughts. Still, a morph like that could come in handy, so it's not a wasted thought.

I try to keep the dog focused on the smell of home cooked meals, filthy, sweaty children and other scents of humanity that live in the houses and trailers that exist along the back roads that wind their way through the woods. I'm not going to lead the creature to an isolated population, where it might harm someone. But the parking lot of the Ames Shopping center is in this direction and I'm hoping the Yeerk doesn't try to chase me into a public area that would no doubt expose it.

Unfortunately, that creature is a little bit faster than me. It lands right in front of me after dropping from a height that would cripple a human. That's when I see that its legs are quite muscular and its knees bent backwards like a bird's. The feet seem to flatten for a moment, keeping it from tripping on the inclined ground. I stood there, paralyzed by both fear and awe at this amazingly built alien.

The awe lasted a moment as it made a fist and swiped at me with its right arm. I backed up in time to avoid being sliced in half by those blades. As it tried to swipe again, I turned and tried to bolt. But that's when I found out what else was in that truck.

A worm…or a snake. Actually, it was more like a giant millipede. The kind they sell in pet stores, only I couldn't conceive of the entomological thrill-seeker who would even think of this as pet material. The dog's vision was hazy at a great this distance. But as I ran and they grew closer, I could see four large jelly-like eyes that surrounded their heads on all sides. And if that was the most interesting feature, I'd have been happy, because it was their mouths filled with rows and rows of gnashing teeth that kept me running from them.

The dog was fast. But as the millipede monsters and Razor blade worked together, cutting me off at parts and trying to corral me back to the Church, my muscles began to ache. The twisting, the turning and the running and the jumping over fallen branches, the dog was not meant for this. Attack dogs are designed to take down enemies with their weight and their bite.

So when Razorblade dropped in front of me again, I got desperate. When it raised its arm to swipe, I leapt. The move took the creature by surprise. It jumped back and tried to counter my attack, but not before the weight of my body combined with sheer bite force caused it to stumble.

I held on long enough to draw blood. Then, I felt the slice of the blade and my left forepaw go flying from my body. The pain took me by surprise and I let go.

"Arrrouu!" I cried out as I fell, right on the bloodied stump where my paw used to be.

"Arrrach! The creature bellowed. Greeish warm fluid poured on the ground beside me. And from the taste of flesh in my mouth, I knew I got a good chunk of the alien.

As I lie there, writhing in agony, I could see the giant millipede aliens closing in. I expected Razorblade to finish me off, but as my vision began to fade I could see him taking a huge step back as the millipedes advanced.

The one nearest to me lunged. The last thing I saw before fading out of consciousness was its mouth getting larger and the rows of teeth getting ready to suck me in to the first level of Hell.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I'm still alive today. But the lesser of two evils has a lot of gray area where my situation was concerned.

Moments from dying inside the gut of an interstellar…no, I won't grace Tommy Lee Jones with a quote here. You get the idea. I was about to die. And now I was alive and the stump where my missing paw was had stopped bleeding. I was in a room that smelled of oak, water and old clothes. So if I wasn't dead and I wasn't bleeding, and more to the point, I wasn't outside, the alternative wasn't shaping up to be much better.

"Relax," a voice said. "You were in stasis for a time, Andalite. You still have some time yet before you are trapped in this form that is if I'm correct."

Andalite? Those were the guys the Yeerks hated. Kullan and Sestran were talking about some Andalite spaceship and an attack on the pool in California. Through the haze of pain and what I guessed was a drug induced fog I was able to piece all of that together.

My vision became slightly clearer. The room was dimly lit, but the walls matched the doors and the overall build of the church. To the right of my limp body, there was an indoor pool of some kind. I could smell the water, but there were other things in the pool I couldn't identify. Not chlorine, but something…well, alien.

I tried to lift my head to get a better look. Then I saw my dad, Kullan, standing over me with his hand on his hips. Father Mosely, or Sestran, stood off to the side with a Dracon beam leveled at me, in case I decided to pull a "Tripod the Wonder Dog" and attack someone. Two men and a woman stood near the edge of the pool. In the dim lighting, they seemed sullen and tired.

"You have to love human religions," Kullan said, looking thoughtfully at the pool. "There's always some loophole to exploit, some cultural aspect of the religious experience that we are able to take advantage of. Edirss was right about humans. A pity she had to leave the planet to one so incompetent."

Who… I paused. Would Dad recognize my thought-speak? Did it sound like me to him, or was it just that? Voiceless thought?

My answer came in the form of a downward glance. Kullan crouched beside me.

"Speak up," he said. "Now is not the time to be shy, Andalite. Especially not since you cost me two Taxxons. Foul and disgusting creatures they may be, but unlike you, they have their purpose."

Taxxons? The worm creatures were the Taxxons he was referring to earlier. I looked into my Dad's eyes and tried to "disguise" my thought-speak voice as best as I could.

Who are you? He asked.

He grinned that awful grin. Then he turned to the three humans standing beside the pool.

"You may enter the pool now." He said. "My Kandrona is yours now as it will be your children's."

Razorblade, which I assumed was the Hork-Bajir they spoke of, stood beside two of the humans and held their arms. Sestran turned his attention to the remaining human, gripping the woman's shoulders as she bent over the pool and turned her head.

It happened so fast that I almost missed it. Something that looked like a wad of chewed up gum…"crawled" from their ears. My human instinct was to be disgusted by the event, but the dog just wanted to eat it.

_Down boy, _I said, as if the dog were a separate entity inside of me. _If we survive this, there's one Yeerk I promise to feed you._

"They're dying, Andalite," Kullan continued. "Not that this should bother you. After all, it's what you came here to do. Kill our kind. But, this should be particularly interesting to you as it will likely break what little spirit you have left."

What are you talking about? I asked. And who are you? Do you work for Visser Three?

Kullan roared with laughter. Even Sestran chuckled a bit, in spite of what happened earlier.

"He must be young, Sestran," Kullan said. He got up and walked over to the human hosts. The woman seemed to have snapped out of a daze and she began struggling.

"Let me go, Yeerk!" She cried out. "I have a family! I have a job with people who care about me!"

Kullan took the lady in his arms and held hers down, restraining her. I watched as my dad raised his hand to caress her cheek.

Leave her alone, I said, growling with my dog's teeth.

Kullan laughed even more as he continued to run his hand through her hair as she continued to struggle and scream obscenities at him. He held her in place while Sestran stuck a needle into a part of her that made me turn away. Kullan did the same with the two men, who were also struggling under the Hork-Bajir's grip. When they slackened, the Hork-Bajir and Sestran went to work laying them down in a row. Kullan returned to my side, arms akimbo.

"So valiant," he said, shaking his head. "Really Andalite, you must be an aristh. The older ones could care less about a sultry female from another species. But for what it's worth, I wouldn't dream of harming her. Former hosts of Visser Three's closest disciples are too valuable for me to simply throw away."

I don't understand.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't." Kullan reached for a plastic chair. "Oh Andalite. What do they teach you in those schools besides how to interfere in the lives of other races? Or how to preach the values of interspecies relations, only to brutally destroy those that becomes a liability to your cause?"

And I thought the Chee were annoyingly cryptic. At least their redeeming qualities were not trying to main or kill me.

"Esplin and I have one thing in common," Kullan went on. "We were both born around the same time and our first steps into the world lead to the conquest of the Hork-Bajir home planet. Only our passions were entirely different. Whereas Esplin craved power and conquest, it was my devotion to the sciences that lead to finding an antidote for the deadly Quantum Virus your people let loose.

"The newly formed Council of Thirteen granted me my own research vessel as a reward and a team of forty-two Yeerks under my command. More than half of those were Hork-Bajir, a compliment to my skills as the Hork-Bajir hosts were suddenly few in number thanks to your people."

Kullan looked up as a fifth man entered the room. He had something in his hand. And when he knelt by the pool to drop it in the water, I recognized it as another Yeerk.

"I couldn't save Iniss 143," he said, turning to Kullan. "It took me too long to extract Culrath."

"You fool," Sestran hissed. He gestured to the Hork-Bajir. While I couldn't tell what a Hork-Bajir's facial expressions meant, it was starting to look as tired and as sullen as the human controllers had been before their Yeerks left them. "Endran is ready to bond. That leaves only two dying Yeerks to make others with."

"Don't think so linearly Sestran," Kullan said in a warning tone. "There is still a third Yeerk that can join them."

Sestran went pale at that. The new Yeerk didn't look to happy at the prospect either and he reached for a Dracon beam that was tucked in his belt.

Kullan acted swiftly pressing the hilt of his own Dracon against the other's back. The Hork-Bajir leapt across the pool (no easy feat, given the low hung ceiling) and placed its arm blade under the controller's chin.

"Do it Forham. You've sold your soul to men," Kullan hissed. "Your life is mine and your choice is simple. Die, uselessly, like those who failed to see my way of things or seek your salvation in the future of our race. The new Yeerk Empire will rise with our without your help."

I couldn't see Forham's face. But it was hard to imagine too many other options going through his head, with a Dracon beam in his back and a blade pressed against his throat. A moment later, the Yeerk left the host and like before, a needle went into the human to keep him from struggling.

The Hork-Bajir then proceeded to lower himself into the pool. Sestran and Kullan took positions with their Dracons.

"We should have invested the time and energy in restraints," Kullan mused. "But alas, time didn't allow us much room for planning."

As soon as the Hork-Bajir's Yeerk was out, Sestran fired. The Hork-Bajir slumped to the side, unconscious, but alive presumably.

"Forham is trying to escape," Sestran observed, looking into the water.

"He won't get far." Kullan said. "When our time comes, the need to propagate is stronger than any other urge. You have done well Sestran. In spite your many faults, you have remained loyal to me and for that, I reward you by making you my Sub-Visser."

Sestran lowered his head, presumably bowing.

"Thank you, Visser Six." He said, sincerely. "It is a pleasure to serve with you once more."


	13. Chapter 13

_Visser Six? _I thought. Visser Three was the guy in charge here, so I guessed that Visser was something like colonel or general. But Kullan 926…my dad's Yeerk was also a Visser?

Something wasn't adding up here. I got up, slowly. Sestran twitched and Kullan turned back to me. My body seemed heavier with only three forepaws but I managed to get myself up right and drag myself to the pool.

What's happening here? I asked, remembering to disguise my voice.

I watched two of the Yeerks as they appeared to chase a third one. They were so close to me that I could have lapped them up, but I didn't think that would help my chances of getting out of here. The faster Yeerk, I assumed was Forham.

"They are mating," Kullan explained. "A Culrath and Endran are emitting a pheromone that Forham's body cannot help but respond to. Though he consciously does not wish for this time to come, they are drawn to it and his will is not enough."

You die when you mate, I realized. Not because I know Yeerk physiology, but because it explains why Forham and Sestran were suddenly so terrified. In the natural world, plenty of animals die after they procreate.

Suddenly, I remember a special on the Discovery Channel about tape worms and how they reproduce by breaking off every single part of their body. The new organism then grows and spreads itself in a similar fashion. But what would happen if you were an intelligent being and you were perfectly aware of what was going on?

One of the Yeerks caught up to Forham. The other latched on shortly after. Seconds later they stopped swimming.

"And the cycle begins."

I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A mass of stagnant green flesh was beginning to writhe and twist. If I leaned closely to the water, I could see small…I don't know what they were, breaking off from the mass and starting to swim around.

"Watch Andalite," Kullan said. "Watch my new empire forming."

I glanced up at Kullan. It was getting easier to separate the Yeerk from my father with every word. Especially when I considered that Kullan's plan was insane.

How do you plan to overthrow your empire with a handful of newborns? I asked, desperately hoping I still sounded like an Andalite.

"I like this one, Sestran. Inquisitive, intelligent." Kullan grabbed my face and pulled it upwards so that we were looking into each other's eyes. The dog instincts hated being grabbed this way and I fought to keep it under control. "You would make an excellent host, Andalite. Young and inexperienced though you are I have no doubt that your intellect would benefit graciously from our time together. Because I assure you of this Andalite, the Empire has all ready made inroads to the conquest of your home world. And when it comes down to the final battle, between my Empire and theirs, _mine _is the side you're going to want to fall on."

And suddenly, I hated Erek. I hated John and Bryce and all of the Chee who had agreed to tell me everything. Because while my "friends" had their limitations and couldn't get me out of this mess it was my enemy who had given me the chance to save my father.

Those Yeerks in the pool couldn't possibly have been old enough to infest someone yet. My dad would be like the freed humans and Hork-Bajir. Probably sedated for a time, but free. And all because Visser Six wanted me as his host.

Never mind that I wasn't an Andalite. I was someone who had the morphing power. And at the time I hit that strange cube, I didn't know what I had. If the Chee had just saved my life and told me to take a hike, I would never have known about them. There would be no risk and Visser Six would no doubt recognize the power that his very enemies had created. Big deal. He'd probably get his stupid ass killed trying to attack the Windmill that was the much more powerful Visser's considerable force, and bring me down with him, but at least I died willing to save my father.

But no. Because of everything I knew, because I knew the Yeerk would stop at nothing to get the Chee and whatever technology they had, I couldn't take the out that Visser Six was giving me. The reason I was doing all of this in the first place. Now, my choices were infestation or death. And the Chee had chosen for me.

_Thanks a lot guys._

I think you better go ahead and kill me, I said.

Kullan grimaced and dropped my head.

"Very well," he said. He turned to Sestran and nodded. Then he pulled his Dracon beam out and aimed it at me.

For the second time that day, I stared death down. I tried to prepare myself for it. But, you can't really prepare for death since you don't really know what's going to happen. I guess it was fate that I was to die in the basement of a Church.

I wanted to say good bye to Dad. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but I couldn't. As Kullan pressed some kind of dial on the Dracon beam, I realized that Dad was still in there somewhere. And if I was going to die, I didn't want him sitting in there, knowing that it was his hand that pulled the trigger.

But instead of a blinding flash of light, Kullan threw out his foot, kicking me in the stomach.

"Urrrh," I moaned.

Kullan laughed out loud and crouched low, grabbing me roughly by the ear and looking into my eyes once more.

"Did you really think you had a choice in the matter, Andalite?" He asked, snidely. "That's just now how the world works. The dog's brain is easy enough to infest. And after that, I'm sure your morphing technology will be-"

There was a knock at the back door. I hadn't noticed it before, but the shaft of daylight from a space in the far back of the room was where the truck had pulled up to. The knock came again, louder this time.

"Sheriff's department! Open up please."

Kullan and Sestran were distracted for just long enough.

I lunged at Dad's leg, biting his ankle.

"Ahh!" He yelled.

Sestran came around the pool, hoping to get a better shot. I scrambled to my remaining legs and leapt up, putting the full force of the attack dogs trained body into the leap and forcing my father's very human body to the floor. The impact forced him to lose his grip on the dracon and I immediately knocked it out the way with my nose.

The door was kicked in and with the speed and eagerness of a dog, I bolted to the exit. I expected the sheriff to raise his gun to me. Most officers were probably well trained in what to do if an eighteen pound dog came flying in your direction, but to my surprise he simply stepped aside and let me go.

"Go to the van around the front," he said.

Without even having to stop and look back, I realized he was a Chee. I limped towards the front of the church and sure enough, there was a K9 unit van parked there, with another officer waiting for me. I didn't realize Vermont's police force was staffed by people who were programmed not to harm anyone, but then it also explained some things about my beloved State's finest as well.

"Behind you!" The office shouted.

I turned around and saw Sestran, who had somehow gotten past the Chee cop and was now bounding up towards me.

_Oh, that's right, _I said, wishing I could roll my eyes in this morph. _They couldn't have stopped him if they tried. And officer McGruff back there is undoubtedly staring and wondering what the hell use he could be right now._

"Die Andalite!" He yelled, raising his Dracon.

There was a short distance between us, but my adrenaline surged as and my hind legs were still perfectly functioning. And in what felt like a cliché slow-motion movie scene, I lunged. Sestran panicked and fired, scorching my flank with the beam. This only pissed the dog off more as pain surged through my body. I landed, full force on Mosely, grabbing his weapon arm and chomping down as he fell back words against the bank. His head struck the ground and I believe…I desperately believe, that he was only unconscious. But the force cause me to tear a significant chunk of flesh from his arm.

I let go immediately and tried to fight the dog's instincts to go for the throat. A powerful set of arms grabbed me and lifted me into the air. Before I could lunge.

"Easy," the Chee said. "We're getting you out of here."

And then everything sped up. I was placed in the back of the K-9 van and told to morph out. Much to my relief, the changes happened quickly and by the time we were halfway to the Treet residence I was fully human and fully exhausted.

"That's a Hork-Bajir," I said, pointing to the holographic image in front of me. The image changed to the millipede. "That's a Taxxon."

"Those are the most common Controllers in the Empire," Erek explained. "The Hork-Bajir are a conquered race, as Kullan told you, and like humans, most of them are involuntary controllers. The Taxxons are all voluntary controllers. In exchange for rare and exoctic meats from all over the galaxy, the Taxxons are basically, forgive the expression, the dogs of the Yeerk Empire."

It turns out the Taxxons are also fierce cannibals. The Chee had arrived sometime during my stunt in the woods and later filled me in on what I had missed. Apparently the Taxxons tried to attack the Hork-Bajir, who promptly slashed out and injured them both mortally. They proceeded to then eat each other, which explains why they weren't there for the alien Baptism.

Forham and Sestran arrived in the nick of time to stun them, giving the Chee plenty of time to erect a force field and hologram around the Church, to keep humans from getting too curious about what was going on at the Church.

I felt like Luke Skywalker watching his holographic image in the dog park beneath Bryce's house. Joey was at a friend's house, so Bryce's parents were down here, along with the Paul and a few other Chee who were gathered around me. Some were out further, playing with dogs, but I had no doubt that they could hear me.

A German shepherd rested its head in my lap and I scratched its ear with one hand as I tried to sip the hot chocolate Mrs. Treet made for me. It was supposed to calm my nerves. The dog or the chocolate. Maybe both. Either way, my stomach was in knots over the events of just a few hours ago. I have the Chee a brief rundown of all that had happened.

"If your Dad's a Visser, you're not going to be safe for much longer," Bryce said. "We can keep you safe here if you like. Paul can continue playing-"

"No," I said. "No, Paul can't go on to play me. Don't you see it's the same risk either way? What if I get killed? How long can either of you keep this up while Kullan continues to use my Dad as a pawn in his stupid scheme?"

No one seemed to have an answer for that. I gently pushed the dog away and got to my feet.

"Thank you for the hot chocolate, Mrs. Treet," I said, handing the mug to her. "But I need to go."

"Will you be safe?" Mrs. Treet asked, concerned.

I looked to the Chee, finally focusing on Erek.

"Look, a part of me is really floored at you guys for telling me everything," I said. "But I also know that giving myself up to Kullan wouldn't solve anything. If anything, they still would have had me and my Dad and with my morphing power, Dad would have been more expendable." Frustrated I threw my hands up. "God I hate this!"

I got back to the surface and left out the Treets backdoor. The sun was setting and the air was getting cooler. I needed time to think and the sky was going to be my therapy couch that night.


	14. Epilogue

_At this time, Rachel has infiltrated Chapman's house a second time. From that point on the Animorphs are about to face Visser Three for a second time._

Dad returned home that night, strangely free of any bruises and definitely limping. Not that I was actively trying to find wounds or anything. But my eyes did cast downward as he went to the sink to wash his hands.

I was sitting at the table trying to eat a bowl of soup and going over the homework that "I" did earlier. Paul was too good at math for my teachers to ever believe I had done it. And with the mentality that I would go back to school tomorrow, unharmed, I worked at changing some of the answers so Mrs. Sparrow wouldn't give me a detention for cheating.

"How was school?" Dad asked.

No agitation in his voice, or trace that he had a bad day. Just a casual, ordinary, how was school. I thanked God that I had the sense not to blow my cover at the Church.

"Oh, the usual," I said. "Mrs. Sparrow is convinced she can take over the world. I think you should look into that."

Dad chuckled. At least it felt like dad.

For the next three days I didn't talk to Bryce. Actually, once I made contact with him. But it was a note that said, _Just give me some space. Don't screw with anyone if you catch my drift, _so it wasn't technically speaking.

The next three nights I slept with one eye open, expecting Kullan to drag me out of bed and up to the church. But three nights later I was still me.

_What's going on in your head? _I wanted to know. _What do you want from me Kullan? Sorry, Visser Six._

The bottom line is that I was patently and seriously screwed, no matter what I did. And three nights I could have been trying to figure everything out were three nights I had wasted.

"B minus," Mrs. Sparrow tossed the test on the table in front of me. "Very good, Sean."

_Not really_, I thought as I looked over the test. Some of the problems were the same as the ones on the homework Paul had done for me that week. I remembered the answers and those were what landed me the B minus. Not a huge deal considering how badly I would suck on the next test.

When class let out, I walked with Bryce. We didn't talk for most of the way. Then Bryce broke the silence.

"You should know we've been watching you," Bryce said.

"I know." Or I at least suspected the Chee wouldn't take the chance of not keeping an eye on me. "Listen, do any of the Chee in California know anything? Anything at all about Kullan 926? Or Sestran?"

Bryce shook his head.

"Nothing," he said. "A Chee was even able to get access to a computer and hack most of the mother ship's database. Sestran was a low ranking lieutenant who is now presumably dead. And here's something you may find interesting. The real Visser Six is on a Yeerk controlled world called Kobrus, several thousand light years from Earth."

That was interesting. Not that it helped my situation, but it was something to think about.

"So maybe this guy is just a nutcase," I suggested. "Can Yeerks get schizophrenia?"

"I honestly don't know."

We stopped walking and gazed down at the river. The river was so much like my life at that moment. Constantly on the move, focusing on one direction but not really knowing where it ends. A week ago, my life wasn't nearly as complicated. And now I was stuck.

"I wish I knew what to do."

"Can I make a suggestion," Bryce said.

"Anything."

There was a pause. And then Bryce said, "Maybe you should give yourself a name for what you are. Something that reminds you that you're still a human being, but you have a purpose in all of this. Like the way US war prisoners would tell their captors, 'I am an American Soldier'."

I knew what Bryce was talking about. A history teacher made mention of it once, but I didn't know how it would help my situation. I just shrugged.

"Do you have any suggestions?"

"Just one…Animorph."


End file.
